When I first started reading this book, it seemed to me to be a lot of stuff that I would consider common sense. As I progressed through the book, I noticed that it felt more and more like I was getting really good advice from an experienced developer.
I'm glad I read The Pragmatic Programmer early in my career. The authors talk about things that I think you can spend a lot of your time, if not your entire career, perfecting; things like the DRY principle, being careful not to program by coincidence, and the value of being able to make good estimates.
They also mention some really interesting things to ensure your code stays tidy and flexible, like moving the things that can change out of your code and in to configuration files, programming to an interface, and being aware of the broken window principle.
Overall I enjoyed the book, but I wish it had been more detailed. All of these principles are really great, but it would be nice to have somebody that's been there and done that to actually show you the ropes. The authors acknowledge this shortcoming in the resources section at the end of the book and provide a nice list of books, blogs, magazines and web references to look in to for further reading.
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You make good points about this book. I'm reading it now and enjoying it. I'd like to comment on your concern with the "common sense" aspect of the book. While I've only read a portion of this book so far, I find I can really relate to what has been said. I see these things all the time in my day to day work.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that has particular resonance with me is the Broken Window Syndrome. I have seen developers (including myself unfortunately) fall to this very often. Even though its common sense we still do it. I also think its good you've read this early in your career. It might be easier to incorporate these lessons now than make these mistakes later.