97 Things Every Programmer Should Know edited by Kevlin Henney

Summary: get knowledge regarding most valuable programming practices

What I have liked from the very beginning of the book, was the way the content description was organized. There are two tables of content – first one, regular one, second one divides book into different categories, thus you can read just essays related to particular topic. Another great advantage of the book is the way essays were prepared – two pages per each of them. No wasted space, no elaborates, just the core of the problem that is discussed. The same thing refers to the index – I like books where you can find things within index easily and accurately.

Technical part of the book is the one side of he coin, second one is the content. 97 Things… is a book that covers topics you can find in many other books (Pragmatic Programmer, Agile Developer, Developers Notebook, Productive Programmer). What distinguish this book is the way topics are presented. Authors do not go deeply into details, they just sketch the issue, provide readers with the starting point and don’t give them ‘silver bullet’. Many times you will fell like – ‘hey, I knew that already’ – but that’s OK, because you started to think about the again. I liked the book, I liked the topics, however different style of each essay might be confusing a little bit. If you like consistent style over the whole book, this will be a drawback. Another thing is – if you have read books like Pragmatic Programmer or Practices of an Agile Developer, rethink buying this book. You might feel disappointed. If you haven’t read them – it might be a good starting point for getting a better programmer.

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O’Reilly (paperback): 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know
O’Reilly (e-book): 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know
Amazon (in Books): 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
Amazon (Kindle): 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know
Safari Books Online: 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know