Saturday, August 27, 2016

Book review: The Pragmatic Programmer - From Journeyman to Master


These pages published in 1999 contain a tremendous amount of wisdom for all programmers who wish to become software craftsmen. The book contains a collection of ideas, observations and recommendations for programmers who aspire to raise the bar of professional software development.

While reading this book you will feel like you are having a conversion with two very skilled software craftsmen, you might agree or disagree with their ideas but you cannot argue their judgment.

The authors did a nice thing introducing each chapter with a small context attached, also when new concept or section is introduced it has references to things to which it relates. Also there are interesting exercices at the end of each section.

When reading about portability concerns you'll find links to dead technologies like CORBA or OS like Windows 2000, this will definitely make you reflect on how fast technology has evolved. You'll also appreciate that while sharing knowledge about various topics, the authors shared some good jokes as well.

The book has eight chapters, some of the most interesting topics discussed are: estimations, there are amazingly useful tips about estimating, debugging. Also things to do before a project starts, and topics about pragmatic projects and pragmatic teams. At some point in the book you'll also find explanations for Liskov Substitution and Demeter’s Law.

As a software developer you'll find that even if this book was written many years ago, the shared wisdom is still relevant today.