Review of 'Becoming a Better Programmer: A Handbook for People Who Care About Code' on 'GoodReads'
2 stars
A lot of authors seem think they can gather together what is essentially a ton of short blog posts and compile them into a book that will become as noteworthy and reference-able as The Pragmatic Programmer. Maybe The Pragmatic Programmer is also really just a collection of simple blog posts, and the only reason I liked it so much and disliked this book was because I read them at different points in my career. When I read Pragmatic, I needed to read it, and it was very influential for me, and when I read Becoming a Better Programmer, I'd already learned and started doing most of the things in the book because I've been at this gig too long. Maybe if the books were swapped, I'd love this book and roll my eyes at the basic-ness of Pragmatic.
But as it happens, that's not the timing of when I read …
A lot of authors seem think they can gather together what is essentially a ton of short blog posts and compile them into a book that will become as noteworthy and reference-able as The Pragmatic Programmer. Maybe The Pragmatic Programmer is also really just a collection of simple blog posts, and the only reason I liked it so much and disliked this book was because I read them at different points in my career. When I read Pragmatic, I needed to read it, and it was very influential for me, and when I read Becoming a Better Programmer, I'd already learned and started doing most of the things in the book because I've been at this gig too long. Maybe if the books were swapped, I'd love this book and roll my eyes at the basic-ness of Pragmatic.
But as it happens, that's not the timing of when I read these books, and so for me Pragmatic Programmer was life-changing, and this book was an incredibly long and tedious collection of what I'd argue is common knowledge.
The book is probably fine, and I might even recommend it to a newcomer, but it just didn't do much for me. I'm not trying to say I'm above it, this isn't me tooting my own horn, I just genuinely think that there's nothing particularly insightful or noteworthy at play here. Just a standard collection of common programmer wisdom that anyone who has been working for a few years knows. I frankly found the book a slog to get through, and I kept hoping I'd eventually happen upon something worth bookmarking, quoting, or highlighting, but I just never did.
I think this is a definite "your mileage may vary" book. There are a lot of positive reviews from career newbies who clearly found it to be, for them, what I found Pragmatic Programmer to be for myself. So I don't know, it's probably worth reading if you're fairly new to programming, or perhaps unsure of yourself or suffering from imposter syndrome.
