About the Book
The Pragmatic Programmer is one of those 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
Table of Contents:
- Chapter 1: A Pragmatic Philosophy
- Chapter 2: A Pragmatic Approach
- Chapter 3: The Basic Tools
- Chapter 4: Pragmatic Paranoia
- Chapter 5: Bend, or Break
- Chapter 6: Concurrency
- Chapter 7: While You Are Coding
- Chapter 8: Before the Project
- Chapter 9: Pragmatic Projects
About the Author :
Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt are internationally recognized as leading voices in the software development community. They consult and speak around the world. Together, they founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf, publishing award-winning, leading-edge books for software developers. They were two of the authors of the Agile Manifesto.
Dave currently teaches college, turns wood, and plays with new technology and paradigms. Andy writes science fiction, is an active musician, and loves to tinker with technology. But, most of all, they’re both driven to keep learning.
Review :
"To participate in the next generation of professional product delivery you have to be pragmatic but disciplined. Otherwise, you are fated to be ungrounded dreamers whose products endanger people and whose ideas never become successfully integrated into the world. Andy and Dave described a pragmatic but disciplined approach which is a key step towards professionalism."
–Ken Schwaber, co-creator of Scrum and founder of Scrum.org, agile manifesto signatory, and author of Software in 30 Days.
"Picking adjectives is hard work. In The Pragmatic Programmer, Dave and Andy set the tone for their work–thoughtful, expert, aspirational, and full of care for themselves and those they touch through their programs. From its publication, this was the book to read if you wanted to work to improve."
–Kent Beck, Gusto, author of Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, Test-Driven Development: By Example, and The Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns
"Some say that with The Pragmatic Programmer, Andy and Dave captured lightning in a bottle; that it’s unlikely anyone will soon write a book that can move an entire industry as it did. Sometimes, though, lightning does strike twice, and this book is proof. The updated content ensures that it will stay at the top of “best books in software development” lists for another 20 years, right where it belongs."
—VM (Vicky) Brasseur, Director of Open Source Strategy, Juniper Networks
"If you want your software to be easy to modernize and maintain, keep a copy of The Pragmatic Programmer close. It’s 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
" The Pragmatic Programmer is the one book I can point to that completely dislodged the existing trajectory of my career in software and pointed me in the direction of success. Reading it opened my mind to the possibilities of being a craftsman, not just a cog in a big machine. One of the most significant books in my life."
—Obie Fernandez, Author, The Rails Way
"First-time readers can look forward to an enthralling induction into the modern world of software practice, a world that the first edition played a major role in shaping. Readers of the first edition will rediscover here the insights and practical wisdom that made the book so significant in the first place, expertly curated and updated, along with much that’s new."
—David A. Black, Author, The Well-Grounded Rubyist
"I have an old paper copy of the original Pragmatic Programmer on my bookshelf. It has been read and re-read and a long time ago it changed everything about how I approached my job as a programmer. In the new edition everything and nothing has changed: I now read it on my iPad and the code examples use modern programming languages—but the underlying concepts, ideas, and attitudes are timeless and universally applicable. Twenty years later, the book is as relevant as ever. It makes me happy to know that current and future developers will have the same opportunity to learn from Andy and Dave’s profound insights as I did back in the day."
—Sandy Mamoli, Agile coach; Author of How Self-Selection Lets People Excel
