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The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

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Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#41

Post by jsperson »

jkaptur wrote: post #39

I was underwhelmed by this book. I think that so many of the practices (like version control) have become so popular that reading an argument for their use seems superfluous. That also makes it really jarring when it recommends something that decidedly hasn't taken off, like the blackboard design pattern. I had the same experience reading "The Design of Everyday Things". To some extent, these books seem most valuable…

> I think that so many of the practices (like version control) have become so popular that reading an argument for their use seems superfluous.

This made me laugh - not because you aren't right (in theory), but because I just took over a project from a big four consulting company. When I asked about the location of the latest version of the code (after looking in VC and not finding it)...answer: on the production server. "We could have checked it into VC, but didn't want to take the time."

I've seen at least n=6 of these in the past couple of years.

Sometimes the oldies are goodies.

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#42

Post by samlents »

jkaptur wrote: post #39

I was underwhelmed by this book. I think that so many of the practices (like version control) have become so popular that reading an argument for their use seems superfluous. That also makes it really jarring when it recommends something that decidedly hasn't taken off, like the blackboard design pattern. I had the same experience reading "The Design of Everyday Things". To some extent, these books seem most valuable…

What about "The Design of Everyday Things" strikes you as stale? It's been a while since I've read it, but I don't remember feeling that way when I was reading it. That being said, I was just getting started, so I was doubtlessly lacking context.

Can you recommend a book akin to Desi...Things that you feel better describes "modern" design?

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#43

Post by Falling3 »

diminoten wrote: post #36
nautilus12 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats with companies constantly throwing people in the trenches and forcing them to be in constant maintanence mode all the time? I feel like they are just asking for burnout and turnover. If its that bad, give it to someone to greenfield some painful part of it rather than spend their life on the hamster wheel.

Because companies like to make money, and they can't make money when systems fail. If maintaining a codebase causes burnout, maybe software isn't for you.

That just sounds like a deliberately obtuse misreading of the parent's comment.

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#44

Post by cuddlecake »

diminoten wrote: post #33
milesvp wrote: post #17

There’s been a lot of love for this book, but I found the title to be jarring. When I was given the book to read, I was doing a lot of maintenance work, and was doing a lot of ‘duct tape and bailing wire’ kinds of fixes to keep the systems functional, while slowly addressing the root causes of downtime and issues. To me this was truly pragmatic programming, but nothing in the first few chapters even tries to deal wit…

The book isn't meant to be read front to back, the "most relevant" parts of the book for your situation aren't magically going to appear at the beginning. Try reading it again, this time thinking of each chapter as its own, separate story. Don't fall into the trap of "This is popular so I'm going to express criticism". If you want to, you can extract a great deal of wisdom from this book.

Don't fall into the trap of "This is criticism of something popular merely because it is popular"!

Hehe, no offense, just talking to myself.

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#45

Post by Supermancho »

diminoten wrote: post #36
nautilus12 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats with companies constantly throwing people in the trenches and forcing them to be in constant maintanence mode all the time? I feel like they are just asking for burnout and turnover. If its that bad, give it to someone to greenfield some painful part of it rather than spend their life on the hamster wheel.

Because companies like to make money, and they can't make money when systems fail. If maintaining a codebase causes burnout, maybe software isn't for you.

I don't think you understand what "maintenance" means here.

If you make them well enough for the job, you haven't succeeded at your job.

If you make them well enough for the job and you don't need to constantly watch for failures, you have succeeded at your job.

If you can't say "this is as good as it can be done" for a given piece of software, you might have room to grow.

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#46

Post by hyperpallium »

jkaptur wrote: post #39

I was underwhelmed by this book. I think that so many of the practices (like version control) have become so popular that reading an argument for their use seems superfluous. That also makes it really jarring when it recommends something that decidedly hasn't taken off, like the blackboard design pattern. I had the same experience reading "The Design of Everyday Things". To some extent, these books seem most valuable…

Like reading a novel that created a stereotype/trope - so derivative!

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#47

Post by dmix »

jshowa3 wrote: post #29
nautilus12 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats with companies constantly throwing people in the trenches and forcing them to be in constant maintanence mode all the time? I feel like they are just asking for burnout and turnover. If its that bad, give it to someone to greenfield some painful part of it rather than spend their life on the hamster wheel.

You'd be surprised how much companies operate in silos without any training, design, or planning. Most of the time, you're just throwing crap together at the last minute. Doing things without saying no.

If you're not saying no often as either a designer or a developer then you should be concerned.

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#48

Post by BeetleB »

tedunangst wrote: post #8

There's some good advice in the book, but I found the majority of it seems to be rather goldilocks flavored. Implement the features you need, but don't add too many, but don't omit important ones either. Write some documentation, but not too much or too little. Etc. You read it, and oh yes, very wise, but not really helpful? Not much here would be useful in resolving a dispute between two programmers, one who wants t…

>Not much here would be useful in resolving a dispute between two programmers, one who wants to do things one way and one who wants to do it a different way.

This is probably not what you meant, but: The last thing I want in those types of discussions is "But book X says this!"

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#49

Post by tedunangst »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #18
tedunangst wrote: post #8

There's some good advice in the book, but I found the majority of it seems to be rather goldilocks flavored. Implement the features you need, but don't add too many, but don't omit important ones either. Write some documentation, but not too much or too little. Etc. You read it, and oh yes, very wise, but not really helpful? Not much here would be useful in resolving a dispute between two programmers, one who wants t…

People have a tendency to become extremists. I sometimes think of it as a ridge, with cliffs on both sides. People look at one of the cliffs, and back away from it, because it's a cliff , and it's dangerous , and so they're going to make sure that they don't fall off of it. But they get so focused on that cliff that they forget that there's also a cliff on the other side. So in that sense, the advice is good and nece…

I would argue that "the people who need to read this book" will read it and then announce, yes, of course, that's exactly how I do things. Perhaps that's why it's so popular. Everybody can see themselves in it.

Re: The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

#50

Post by steveklabnik »

jkaptur wrote: post #39

I was underwhelmed by this book. I think that so many of the practices (like version control) have become so popular that reading an argument for their use seems superfluous. That also makes it really jarring when it recommends something that decidedly hasn't taken off, like the blackboard design pattern. I had the same experience reading "The Design of Everyday Things". To some extent, these books seem most valuable…

This effect happens in a lot of ways: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunn...
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