Includes bibliographical references.

Foreword. Preface. 1. A Pragmatic Philosophy. The Cat Ate My Source Code. Software Entropy. Stone Soup and Boiled Frogs. Good-Enough Software. Your Knowledge Portfolio. Communicate! 2. A Pragmatic Approach. The Evils of Duplication. Orthogonality. Reversibility. Tracer Bullets. Prototypes and Post-it Notes. Domain Languages. Estimating. 3. The Basic Tools. The Power of Plain Text. Shell Games. Power Editing. Source Code Control. Debugging. Text Manipulation. Code Generators. 4. Pragmatic Paranoia. Design by Contract. Dead Programs Tell No Lies. Assertive Programming. When to Use Exceptions. How to Balance Resources. 5. Bend, or Break. Decoupling and the Law of Demeter. Metaprogramming. Temporal Coupling. It's Just a View. Blackboards. 6. While You Are Coding. Programming by Coincidence. Algorithm Speed. Refactoring. Code That's Easy to Test. Evil Wizards. 7. Before the Project. The Requirements Pit. Solving Impossible Puzzles. Not Until You're Ready. The Specification Trap. Circles and Arrows. 8. Pragmatic Projects. Pragmatic Teams. Ubiquitous Automation. Ruthless Testing. It's All Writing. Great Expectations. Pride and Prejudice. Appendices. A Resources. Professional Societies. Building a Library. Internet Resources. Bibliography. B Answers to Exercises. Index. 020161622XT04062001

What others in the trenches say about The Pragmatic Programmer...The cool thing about this book is that it's great for keeping the programming process fresh. The book helps you to continue to grow and clearly comes from people who have been there. --Kent Beck, author of Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change I found this book to be a great mix of solid advice and wonderful analogies! --Martin Fowler, author of Refactoring and UML Distilled I would buy a copy, read it twice, then tell all my colleagues to run out and grab a copy. This is a book I would never loan because I would worry about it being lost. --Kevin Ruland, Management Science, MSG-Logistics The wisdom and practical experience of the authors is obvious. The topics presented are relevant and useful...By far its greatest strength for me has been the outstanding analogies--tracer bullets, broken windows, and the fabulous helicopter-based explanation of the need for orthogonality, especially in a crisis situation. I have little doubt that this book will eventually become an excellent source of useful information for journeymen programmers and expert mentors alike.--John Lakos, author of Large-Scale C++ Software Design This is the sort of book I will buy a dozen copies of when it comes out so I can give it to my clients. --Eric Vought, Software Engineer Most modern books on software development fail to cover the basics of what makes a great software developer, instead spending their time on syntax or technology where in reality the greatest leverage possible for any software team is in having talented developers who really know their craft well. An excellent book. --Pete McBreen, Independent Consultant Since reading this book, I have implemented many of the practical suggestions and tips it contains. Across the board, they have saved my company time and money while helping me get my job done quicker! This should be a desktop reference for everyone who works with code for a living.