The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition

Post by gridspy » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #52

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…

When I finally read Romeo and Juliet, I was surprised at how many cliches and tropes were in it.

Post by sideshowb » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:14 PM UTC

alasdair_ wrote: post #3

The original version of this book is something I'll always treasure. It sits next to "Code Complete", the Gang of Four's "Design Patterns" book and Martin Fowler's "Refactoring" on my top shelf and I still read parts of it every year.

Post by martininmelb » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:20 PM UTC

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #15

alasdair_ wrote: post #3

The original version of this book is something I'll always treasure. It sits next to "Code Complete", the Gang of Four's "Design Patterns" book and Martin Fowler's "Refactoring" on my top shelf and I still read parts of it every year.

Kernighan and Pike’s “the practice of programming” is up there with those on my shelf.

Post by roland35 » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:35 PM UTC

Jtsummers wrote: post #64

Godel_unicode wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just told at my day job that the team will not be using VC for tracking production analytics code because "using git is over-engineering".

There's a set of projects in an adjacent work group that does not use version control. Instead, they create snapshots at various stages of development (before certain formal reviews). These snapshots are fine, actually they're useful, but they don't replace version control. I had a chance to explain and demo git to one of them, who'd written some 10k lines of code between snapshots, to explain how git could help him…

Post by Falling3 » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 10:40 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #54

Supermancho wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I understand just fine, it just sounds like software is too hard for some folks, and while that's okay, but there are those of us who aren't burned out by doing our jobs.