The Pragmatic Programmer 02 / 04 / 2013

One of the last books that I read for my profession is The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master. I feel the necessity of share a couple of good quotations.

What happens when we are proactive and we find a lot of obstacles, excuses or “yes but” arguments?

It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.

About the benefits of discussing ideas…

Nothing is more dangerous than an idea if it’s the only one you have.

Agile development is good, but under certain boundaries.

Who made changes in this line of code? What’s the difference between the current version and last week’s? How many lines of code did we change in this release? Which files get changed most often? This kind of information is invaluable for bug-tracking, audit, performance, and quality purposes.

About writing specifications like APIs, functional requeriments and the importance of those documents.

Dealing with computer systems is hard. Dealing with people is even harder. But as a species, we’ve had longer to figure out issues of human interactions. Some of the solutions we’ve come up with during the last few millennia can be applied to writing software as well. One of the best solutions for ensuring plain dealing is the contract.

Writing a specification is quite a responsibility.

Always make questions to yourself.

So next time something seems to work, but you don’t know why, make sure it isn’t just a coincidence.

One of the reasons of this blog…

The palest ink is better than the best memory. Chinese Proverb.

I usually try to read one technical book and then a non-technical one. If you have suggestions please feel free to leave a comment.