Pragmatic Programmer, The: Your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition

Name: Pragmatic Programmer, The: Your journey to mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition
Rating: 4.8 (2296 reviews)

by: David Thomas (0)

“One of the most significant books in my life.” –Obie Fernandez, Author, The Rails Way

“Twenty years ago, the first edition of The Pragmatic Programmer completely changed the trajectory of my career. This new edition could do the same for yours.” –Mike Cohn, Author of Succeeding with Agile , Agile Estimating and Planning , and User Stories Applied

“. . . filled with practical advice, both technical and professional, that will serve you and your projects well for years to come.” –Andrea Goulet, CEO, Corgibytes, Founder, LegacyCode.Rocks

“. . . lightning does strike twice, and this book is proof.” –VM (Vicky) Brasseur, Director of Open Source Strategy, Juniper Networks
The Pragmatic Programmer is one of those rare tech books you’ll read, re-read, and read again over the years. Whether you’re new to the field or an experienced practitioner, you’ll come away with fresh insights each and every time.

Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt wrote the first edition of this influential book in 1999 to help their clients create better software and rediscover the joy of coding. These lessons have helped a generation of programmers examine the very essence of software development, independent of any particular language, framework, or methodology, and the Pragmatic philosophy has spawned hundreds of books, screencasts, and audio books, as well as thousands of careers and success stories.

Now, twenty years later, this new edition re-examines what it means to be a modern programmer. Topics range from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse. Read this book, and you’ll learn how to:

Fight software rot
Learn continuously
Avoid the trap of duplicating knowledge
Write flexible, dynamic, and adaptable code
Harness the power of basic tools
Avoid programming by coincidence
Learn real requirements
Solve the underlying problems of concurrent code
Guard against security vulnerabilities
Build teams of Pragmatic Programmers
Take responsibility for your work and career
Test ruthlessly and effectively, including property-based testing
Implement the Pragmatic Starter Kit
Delight your users

Written as a series of self-contained sections and filled with classic and fresh anecdotes, thoughtful examples, and interesting analogies, The Pragmatic Programmer illustrates the best approaches and major pitfalls of many different aspects of software development. Whether you’re a new coder, an experienced programmer, or a manager responsible for software projects, use these lessons daily, and you’ll quickly see improvements in personal productivity, accuracy, and job satisfaction. You’ll learn skills and develop habits and attitudes that form the foundation for long-term success in your career.

You’ll become a Pragmatic Programmer.

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The Reviews

Excellent

If you feel unmotivated and lost, reading this book will guide you!You can skip the order of the contents and go directly where it better suits your situation.

In my opinion, this book should be a required read for anyone of any level and in any position in the software development/engineering field. This book teaches so many solid and timeless principles that could possibly take years or decades for the average person to learn, if ever.Before reading this book, I didn't know where I stood as a developer after 15 years of doing it. I'm self-taught, and also learned from my surroundings, assuming that people in higher positions than me must know better - now I never assume anything about anyone or anything. I never got much (useful) feedback but I wanted to be as good as I could be in my field. Reading this book and applying what I learned from it eventually lead to a great confidence in my way of problem solving and coding, and this confidence naturally caused me to be happier, and that's when I realized that when I'm confident and happy I produce my best work that I'm proud of. Not only do I feel like I have leveled up as a software engineer, but I also feel like I leveled up as a person. I also feel validated for a few things I was already doing, and learned that soft skills (communication, accountability, etc) are just as important as hard skills (coding).I've already convinced at least 3 developers to buy their own copy, and I'm about to suggest it to a few more, so I think I need to look up some kind of referral/commission program.This book is worth every penny and has me going back to it for reference all the time.

This is what I call a “peas and carrots” book. It’s not a bad book and it’s hard to argue with anything the authors advocate, but to me it’s a lot like a self-help book in that people will feel good while reading it (and thus rate it highly) but in the end a lot of people will not actually follow the material and unless you’re a newbie a whole lot of it will be pretty obvious. I know this because I’ve been working in the software industry for 20 years and this is hailed as a classic, yet people continue to make the same mistakes. This isn’t the book’s fault really, but I also feel like the book covers a lot without saying much at all. It’s similar to a self-help book for people who are feeling down, they might feel good reading it but does it really genuinely help you in the end? I suppose that depends on the person.Don’t repeat yourself (DRY), always be learning, be mindful of how you name your variables, avoid code rot, don’t over-engineer, don’t make excuses when you mess up, write unit tests, use version control, avoid global variables, use properties or getter/setter methods, work well with others, refactor your code when needed, break down complex problems into smaller more digestible chunks, double-check emails before sending them, etc etc. These are the concepts this book talks about.This is more a “why” book and less a “how” book. It does talk about the hows from a birds-eye perspective but it never really digs deep into any particular topic, rather it uses (well written) flowery language to say a lot without saying a whole lot. I really feel like this type of book, for the most part, could be distilled down into a couple pages of bullet points and not lose too much effect. It is well written though, so it’s kinda fun to read in a feel-good sense.There are good nuggets of information in this book and some topics are covered a bit more in depth than others, but in the end I think you will feel good while reading it because it is easy to read and agree with it, especially for a book focused on programming, but I don’t think you’ll come out of it leveling up your skills, especially if you’re experienced. Despite people saying that this is a book for all levels, I feel like you’ll get more out of it if you’re a new developer. For experienced developers, as I mentioned, it will serve as a gentle reminder of what you should do, even if you don’t follow the advice given when you’re finished with the book.One thing worth mentioning is that I purchased the Kindle version and it's done proper. There are no issues with blurry text or bad formatting like I see with many other technical books.

It came with some scratches and damage at the edges of the cover, also there's one page that seems it wasn't cut off well

Excelente libro, adicional llegó en perfectas condiciones

I bought this book because a lot of people recommends me and i started to read this a few days ago. The content of this book guides and give a los of tips to become more pragmatic and efficient in our work.100% recommended

I would recommend this book to new devs which have been given monoliths. This book teaches not only how to be a better dev, but how to be a better project participant. It's one of those books you can reread because you probably missed something the first time. It's packed so full of useful information, that one has to read it pragmatically. ;)

Great for programmers of any skill level and a must read for all interested in growing as any kind of programming in professional.

Glad it shipped to my country via Amazon Global shipping. The tips are good and the practices advocated are things that are relevant to my career and will remain relevant from years to come. I can see myself reading the book again years in the future.

I have to this day bought this book 6 times in physical copies, and 1 time electronically, I keep gifting it to other craftsman who can gain from this book, and they keep gifting it forward.So like the title said, read it, you won't regret it.

Writing a hello world is the starting point of a software developer career, but it’s quite far from a real SE who can deliver something useful and solid. Reading this book gives you clear direction where you head to to pursue a successful career in software development.

Actually cool. Helped me be a better software engineer. Helps me see short coming in my own process. But i

Book is interesting and you can learn more from it. But book quality is not good. As soon as i received it i saw it was damaged.