The Pragmatic Programmer
I began reading The Pragmatic Programmer this morning. I bought the book after hearing that it was Erik Hatcher's favorite technical book. Since Erik's
Java Development with Ant was my favorite technical book - I figured this was a good recommendation. I've read one chapter and I'm loving it. This book will inspire me to be a better programmer - I can already tell.
I don't do nearly enough reading - too much blogging and OS development. So I'm going to try to read more - as David and Andrew recommend - at least one book a month. Actually, I'm going to shoot for two books per month - one technical and one non-technical. I'd compare this book to Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which I think is a great book for motivating good financial health. I read that bad boy last week in 2 hours!
This is the sort of book that gets you thinking the right way about development. It won't tell you how to optimize algorithms or to traverse trees, but it will get you thinking about different ways to tackle these problems so you understand them and repeat your work. If every programmer in the industry read and understood this book the world would be a much better place.
You can read it cover-to-cover to get a feel for it, but I find myself coming back to it again and again. Even if it's only for a few short minutes on the throne...
Posted by Chris on June 05, 2003 at 02:18 PM MDT #