A fantastic book - when I discovered it I bought every copy I could find in
Birmingham and distributed them to the people I worked with. It's laid out in 46 small "chapters", with 70 "tips". This makes it very accessible, and easy to dip into when you've only got a short period of time.
If you're an experienced programmer, you will have encountered the situations that
Andrew Hunt and
David Thomas describe - and hopefully discovered the solutions too... but the joy of finding these recurrent patterns documented so well and so clearly! [as you can tell, I quite like this book]
As well as coming with my recommendation,
Ward Cunningham and
Kent Beck both endorse the book - if you don't know who these guys are, find out and pay some attention to their work!
This is the kind of book which can speed up the professional development of any programmer, as it concentrates years of practical experience into an easily accessible form.
BUY IT!
NOW!
There's a website at
http://www.PragmaticProgrammer.com/ppbook/index.shtml
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Andy Pryke - 01 Jul 2001