Reviews for The Pragmatic Programmer

1. The Pragmatic Programmer

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, January 12th, 2010

   An excellent read, tho a little heavy going if you're going to try and read it like a novel. If you're a senior developer, it contains a lot of information you would probably already know in terms of techniques and concepts. However, it definitely helps to crystallise those concepts, and collects them all together in one place.

2. Thought provoking

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, December 12th, 2009

   There were plenty of good reviews for this book so I thought I'd give it a crack. My reactions to it were mixed. Some of the tips and topics were quite sharp and practical, while others felt more like idealism - I wouldn't be comfortable implementing some of them on a real small to medium sized project. However the overall book was thought provoking and opened my mind a bit to a different - and more strategic - perspective, which I guess is the main point of the book. I'm glad I read it but didn't get as much out of it as I hoped. I have a feeling though that it could become a very useful reference in the future as a means for 'getting my head out of the sand', and the book is well laid out for this kind of use.

3. Very good tips!

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, October 12th, 2009

   This book is a useful collection of good practices that will help programmers at improving their software skills and designs. The book includes a card which summarizes the tips and checklists, which you can keep on your desk and consult regularly. Tips are provided in all areas of software engineering, i.e. from design, architecture, to debugging and testing. I personally agree with the authors when they advocate the better use of shell commands and editors (tips 21 and 22). It is not just a matter of speed, but it is actually more practical. Another good point that the book has is about ruthless testing (tip 49). Programmers should thoroughly test their code for bugs, what they don't usually do. Unfortunately, bad software design is still quite common in the modern software industry, but I think that this book offers a lot of ideas for improving the current state of the art of the software world.

4. Excelent book

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, September 12th, 2009

   This book is excelent. In my opinion every developer should read it and always keep it around while programming.

5. A non-programmer's programming book

   Rated 4 out of 5 stars, March 12th, 2009

   Now don't get me wrong, you are going to need a massive propensity for learning about programming if you even consider picking this book up. It is dry, dry, dry, and written by some seasoned programmers who know their trade. It is also OLD - so don't expect Ajax, mash-ups and PHP within these page. It isn't even about the web - it's a book about the art of programming, and name-checks Perl and Java as its languages of choice.
   
   As an HTML/CSS/PHP/MySQL developer with a background in copywriting and online marketing, I have recently found myself writing more and more web applications, whether just a little CMS to help a site add news stories to their home page or a fully blown search engine with back-end functionality.
   
   But as someone with no computer science degree or really any formal computing education at all, I have been avidly reading around the subject of software development in order to improve my approach to building web apps.
   
   This book is one of those reads that allows you to map out a lot of things you don't know, for future gap-filling. It is about the WAY to write software, not HOW to do it. It is like sitting down for an evening with a seasoned programmer or two who are going to spend the next few hours telling you why they do things the way they do. As I say, dry, dry, dry - but what you do understand is invaluable, what you don't, equally useful as you can go away and get up to speed.
   
   In this age where even once-simplistic scripting languages are getting in on object-oriented programming, the art and science of "real" programming seems to me to be becoming something that web developers can learn a lot from. As web apps get ever-more complex, I feel only those who do will thrive.
   
   I learned a lot from this book and if my situation sounds like yours, you may too. Just don't expect it to be page-turning - you'll get lost in places. I'm looking forward to hopefully re-reading this in a year or two and feeling like I've progressed as a programmer.