Categories
Technology

The Pragmatic Programmer

Well hey. Guess who had the #1 best-selling computer book in the US for week ending 10/12 (Bookscan)? The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition. -@PragmaticAndy

In the 1990s and 2000s, as editor-at-large for Dr. Dobb’s Journal, I was involved in evaluating software development books for the Jolt Awards. At some point I noticed that the most engaging and interesting books were coming from a small publishing house called The Pragmatic Programmers. I investigated further and learned that the pragmatic programmers slash publishers were Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt, and that it was their experience in writing a book together and working with a publisher that convinced them to start their own technical book publishing company. The book was also called The Pragmatic Programmer, and it became an instant classic.

Time passes, Dr. Dobb’s Journal dies, and I start looking for a new gig. I call Dave and Andy and ask what I can do for them. We settle on a magazine, and PragPub is born, in the spirit of Dr. Dobb’s Journal. Also I begin editing books for them. I have been working with them ever since.

A decade later, The Pragmatic Programmer is now twenty years old and still a classic. But Dave and Andy wanted to keep it pragmatic. So they went to work on a new edition.

“20 years,” they say in the preface to the second edition, “is many lifetimes in terms of software. Take a developer from 1999 and drop them into a team today, and they’d struggle in this strange new world. But the world of the 1990s is equally foreign to today’s developer. The book’s references to things such as CORBA, CASE tools, and indexed loops were at best quaint and more likely confusing.

“At the same time, 20 years has had no impact whatsoever on common sense. Technology may have changed, but people haven’t. Practices and approaches that were a good idea then remain a good idea now. Those aspects of the book aged well.

“So when it came time to create this 20th Anniversary Edition, we had to make a decision. We could go through and update the technologies we reference and call it a day. Or we could reexamine the assumptions behind the practices we recommended in the light of an additional two decades’ worth of experience.

“In the end, we did both.”

And so they have recreated a classic. The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary Edition, is a must-have book for software developers.

Categories
For Kids

Stealing Scenes and Making Cuts

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My partner Nancy is narrating audiobooks under the name Summer Jo Swaine. These are three excellent stories with young female protagonists:

Making the Cut

Making the Cut is the flagship show on the FoodieTV network, giving recent high school graduates a chance to win a scholarship to a prestigious culinary school. Midori is from San Francisco, and grew up in a family that owns a restaurant. All she ever wanted to do was cook, but in Japanese culture, women are relegated to hostess and management roles. Nicole is from Denver, the child of a broken home who’s been forced to grow up way too soon. She’s been poor her entire life, and that prize package is impossibly valuable to her. These two girls become friends despite their cultural differences, and together with six more challengers, will be competing in front of the cameras. With a $10,000 prize and that incredible scholarship at stake, can their friendship survive the rigors of reality television?

©2018 Ian Thomas Healy (P)2018 Ian Thomas Healy

The Scene Stealers

Steal big.

The Crew: Olivia, the Director; Anjanae, the Artist; Pancho, the Techie; Kennedy, the Actress; Jerome, the Money Man; Vajra, the Thug.

The Target: A painting of Anjanae’s deceased mother, stolen from her and presented for sale by a professional artist.

The Job: Steal it back and don’t get caught, because high school is hard enough without facing hard time.

©2017 Ian Thomas Healy (P)2017 Ian Thomas Healy

The Guitarist

High school reporter Sherri “Bax” Baxter is content being an outsider, with a reputation as a nosy busybody among the students of Jericho High. Instead of friendships, she focuses on objective journalistic integrity, because it will get her out of the dead-end Texas oil town and into a prestigious journalism school, and she’s pretty sure she’s found her big story.

A new girl, Molly, has come to town with a mysterious sideways grin, a bolero hat, a well-loved guitar case, and the musical talent of legendary blues man Stevie Ray Vaughan. Two of the school’s rival rock groups need her for the upcoming Battle of the Bands, but Molly has a plan to cherry-pick the best musicians out of each band to form her own super group. Both bands engage in an increasingly dangerous rivalry ranging from theft and vandalism to assault and kidnapping.

Who better to tag along with Molly and get every juicy tidbit than the intrepid school snoop? She might even make a few friends along the way.

©2013 Ian Thomas Healy (P)2017 Ian Thomas Healy

Categories
Technology Writing

Functional Programming: A PragPub Anthology

“Reading Functional Programming: A PragPub Anthology will get you ready to dig into functional programming, and give you enough understanding of these languages to pick the one you want to start with. Highly recommended!”

Ron Jeffries, Just Some Guy at XProgramming, Inc.

Wait, what?

What is this Functional Programming: A PragPub Anthology of which you speak?

I’m glad you asked, imaginary questioner.

Functional Programming: A PragPub Anthology is a new book soon to be published by The Pragmatic Bookshelf. It’s a collection of articles from PragPub on functional programming. But it’s also an introduction to how functional programming is addressed in five languages: Scala, Clojure, Elixir, Haskell, and Swift. We’re pretty excited about this project. Watch this space or the Pragmatic Bookshelf site for the announcement of its publication date.