Comment by shubhamjain | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shubhamjain | Hacker News Reader

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I read "The Pragmatic Programmer" about two years back and back then I felt inspired and excited about all the wonderful ideas shown in the book. Fast forward to today, it seems that stuff was kinda obvious - automate things, read, take responsibility, care for the craft, be patient and the other forty tips.

I kind of believe that, have I not read the book, I would have stumbled upon the ideas later anyhow, by reading blogs, tinkering, and making mistakes. Albeit, it is wrong to expect any magical words that can shift your direction completely, but still I am not sure how much value do printed ideas provide vs learning them by experience. I am not implying that books like it are futile but I don't buy that they are "career-changing".

Same goes for reading about Design Patterns. I believe it is better to learn "Design Patterns" by building and reading code and finding a certain code organization better for your use-case, rather than enforcing a kung-fu-singleton-ninja pattern where it might be simply an over-engineering.

You were inspired.

Therein is the career-changing aspect. Yes they seem obvious now, but you had a roadmap for your learning. That is why it, and many of the other books, are career-changing.

:)

I agree. I have been programming for many years, working in the industry for four years, and have always been interested in improving with clean code, testing and whatnot.

I read the Pragmatic Programmer last year, and it was .. very boring. Most of the tips were like "doh, of course". It's a beginner's book, not for someone who have been trying to improve their code (and processes around it) already for some years.

> It's a beginner's book, not for someone who have been trying to improve their code (and processes around it) already for some years.

Yes -- a beginner's book for someone starting now, but essential for everybody in the industry nonetheless.

Pragmatic Programmer has influenced enough people that it has changed the industry for better. These ideas and practices may sound common sense now, but were not until popularized -- I suspect -- by Pragmatic Programmer. If you found good practices already entrenched in the ecosystem when you joined the industry, the roots can be traced back to a few good books such as Pragmatic Programmer. Even though these ideas may not have been ground breaking, nobody now needs to spend time convincing their peers about these practices from first principles. Time and energy saved for everyone.

My point is, I have seen enough [senior] programmers to whom clean code etc. does not come naturally, and they always benefit from reading this book. Not that they aren't smart, just that someone needs to present a good case which this book does very well.

Its ideas have 'leaked out into the culture'. I doubt it was all so obvious when it first came out.

> I read the Pragmatic Programmer last year, and it was .. very boring. Most of the tips were like "doh, of course".

Context: it was published in 1999.

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