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A review by joergr
97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts by
3.0
97 very short pieces all containing little insights into what makes one a better programmer, written by a field of experienced programmers - mostly white dudes.
It's a short read, and definitely worth going through. There is a lot of good insight. I would say 60% of the pieces contain a valuable message - do testing. be careful of this usual pattern in testing because here's an anecdote where it failed. don't use this pattern. The other 40% I would say suffer from programmer's arrogance a bit too much and are very debatable. About 5-10 pieces actually are great and make sifting through this book worth it.
But again, too many white male voices. I'm certain that diverse voices define a broader insight. Especially since pieces approaching programming as a people problem from a bird's eye view are rare in this book, I'm sure that replacing these 40% debatable pieces with more the voices of women, people of color or women of color would make this a 5 star book.
As it is, I recommend it for every programmer, but I also can't get excited about it.
It's a short read, and definitely worth going through. There is a lot of good insight. I would say 60% of the pieces contain a valuable message - do testing. be careful of this usual pattern in testing because here's an anecdote where it failed. don't use this pattern. The other 40% I would say suffer from programmer's arrogance a bit too much and are very debatable. About 5-10 pieces actually are great and make sifting through this book worth it.
But again, too many white male voices. I'm certain that diverse voices define a broader insight. Especially since pieces approaching programming as a people problem from a bird's eye view are rare in this book, I'm sure that replacing these 40% debatable pieces with more the voices of women, people of color or women of color would make this a 5 star book.
As it is, I recommend it for every programmer, but I also can't get excited about it.