Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chollida1 | Hacker News Reader

I wrote this about the pragmatic programmer a while ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17031609#17031874

Long story short, great book if you read it in the first year of your career but you'll get alot less out of it if you read it later on in your career.

Again it wasn't a knock on the book, I also put the Mythical Man month in the same category.

The "problem" these books have is that they cover alot of foundational concepts about being a programmer that you'll eventually learn on your own if you are even half way introspective.

Reading them early can really jumpstart your programming abilities, reading them later on in your career could have you wondering why everyone recommends a book that just lists out all the common sense ideas that you already know because you earned that knowledge.

And this was my reply to that post, which I feel bears repeating: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17032446

- A quick reference for the important points in Pragmatic Programmer :https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-pragmatic-quick-reference/

- Code Complete: http://codecourse.sourceforge.net/materials/Code-Complete-A-...

A lot of what you say about The Pragmatic Programmer, applies to the book Code Complete too, particularly your last paragraph, however, it has so many "good practices" points, that it is worth reviewing now and then, even for experienced programmers, IMO.

> A lot of what you say about The Pragmatic Programmer, applies to the book Code Complete too

Agreed, that's why I listed that book in my linked comment:)

Oh cool, I did not read it since I thought you gave a summary of it in the comment I was replying to. Now I will :)

That’s a good point about books in general—not every book is worth reading and the information inside is only as valuable as the interest it generates or problems it solves.

I think these books are very valuable for people in management and leadership roles. Instead of just working with the often misguided processes and setups in a lot of companies it’s good to go back to the basics and rethink how things are being done.

Most companies I've worked at fail at the fundamentals in PP. If you can't do the fundamentals, no way to do more.

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