A Quick Review: The Pragmatic Programmer
I recently finished reading The Pragmatic Programmer, a well-known book that I somehow hadn't gotten around to reading until 10 years into my career, and my short review is simple: read this early in your career, so you don't have to learn its lessons the hard way like I did. Is it preachy? Yes. Is it stilted? Sometimes. But it's often right, and even when it's not, it's still worth reading, if just to get you thinking about something you may not have considered. It's especially valuable for those who treat software engineering as a profession, and programming as a craft.
Because there is so much online content around this book, I won't bother giving an overview of its contents, but I will call out a few core themes:
- It focuses on describing behaviors that set effective programmers apart, in a way that spans across both development and engineering tasks. At my current headspace in my career I intuitively agree with most of the behaviors, but still, some of the justifications basically amount to "trust me."
- Functionally, it works best if read with a lot of reflection on how it applies to your career. Even if you disagree, the book thoroughly walks through most of the ins and outs of any software development job. You'll get the most out of this book if you use it to think with intent about each aspect.
- It's a critical read that introduces & reinforces the themes found in a lot of software development guilds, books, newsletters, etc. – so it's a valuable read if you want to participate in those sorts of conversations.
It reads well both as a reference to jump around through, and a cover-to-cover read (though you should probably to bit by bit).
| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Entertaining | ★★★☆☆ |
| Relevant | ★★★★☆ |
| Technical | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Overall | ★★★☆☆ |
This is my first book review, so consider this three star rating the base against which other rating will be calibrated.