said
This is one of those books with a title that sparks your curiosity and eventually makes you get it. From the beginning, It seemed to me a bit weird because it's a kind of self-help manual for programmers. The book is well-written, easy to read and sometimes funny. However, the theme is too ambitious and that's why you feel a bit disapointed in the end. Its biggest mistake is that it promises more than it can deliver.
In a nutshell, "The Pragmatic Programmer" is a rundown of best practices that must command any software construction process. Eight chapters dedicated to common mistakes you must avoid, handy tools you should use in your daily-basis, testing policies, automatic builds, source-code control and so forth. It's plenty of quotes and truths such as: "Prototype to Learn", "Design with Contracts", "Work with a User to Think Like a User", etc.
In short, the book is a compilation of rules, patterns, practices, tips and tricks and lot of common sense. It could be useful for junior programmers, project managers that have never written a line of code and for all of those, so-called, "seniors" who have never read a book about software construction.
Pretty handy... but it's far away from The Holy Bible.
said
A readable, insightful look into the programming trade, designed to give purpose to an otherwise undervalued field. Andy and Dave's perspective on programming offers significant reference material, as well as inroads to two direct companion books, Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers) and Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World (Pragmatic Programmers).
This book shies away from being implementation-specific, while offering sufficient practical examples, ranging from the highly abstract (orthogonality) to the highly specific (version control systems).
This book forms the foundation for an entire series of books, but this reviewer humbly recommends sticking to Andy's own books, unless a specific area of programming practice is desired.
In general, these tend to be more readable than the implementation-level books in the series, which offer more specific examples at the cost of often reading like a manual (comparing against Learn to Program (Pragmatic Programmers) and Agile Web Development with Rails, 2nd Edition).
Overall, this specific book is a recommended read with significance in multiple fields of programming, and enough material to form the basis of an entire career.
valleyfair said
This book contains useful information for novice programmers. The tips are good, but nothing new for experienced programmers. I think anyone who has undertaken more than three or four projects will know 90% of the content from experience already. I'm personally not getting enough from this book to justify the time it takes to read it.
For complete novices, this book may be a good work book to keep around as they mature.
said
The authors provide one with some good advice on topics that are often overlooked. There is a kind of gap that exists in the education of programmers. There are lots of academic texts and courses, and there are lots of "how to" texts and courses. There is not a lot of published works or courses in areas in between. This is actually where most the craft of programming takes place. Most of us who write software for a living have to glean the best practices of our craft from many different sources. The authors have hit the in between sweet spot.
The area of the subject matter is pertinent and much of their advice is good. However, they don't back up a lot of what they say. I felt, like other reviewers, there were a lot of unsubstantiated platitudes.
Another criticism I have is that their advice is very UNIX centric. The authors claim that their advice is platform neutral, but then constantly bash programming practices that evolved from the windows camp. Much of their advice tends to be more pertinent for those working in a UNIX environment. The bottom line is that a pragmatic programmer uses the best tool for the job. I didn't feel that the authors practiced what they preached.
I believe that this book would be very good for younger people who are starting out in the trade, although many of the ideas are good to have continually reinforced. I think it would also be better suited to those who spend more of their time in the UNIX environs.
Another author that concentrates on craft, but spends a little more time backing up his thoughts is Steve McConnell. But Despite my concerns, it is still a worthwhile read.
rnc000 said
Enjoyable and short to read. Provides timeless and technology-agnostic guidelines on how to create software. A must read for all software engineers.
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