An intriguing chapter from a book
Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog, and yes, I know that it has been a while since my last post, but I have been super busy lately with school, work and life in general. Now I’m back and I’m excited to share my thoughts about something that I recently read. I had enough time to read the first chapter from the book called The Pragmatic Programmer, which was written by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas. It was released in 1999 so quite a while ago, however, many of the topics and points the book is covering are still relevant today.
I chose this book because it seemed interesting,
and I was curious to know what the pragmatic programmer will be like. I think
the important part for my classmates to know is the goals of becoming a
pragmatic programmer. I agreed with some of the goals that the authors presented
such as stay current, take classes and so on but I disagreed with one point
which was “learn at least one new language a year”. In my opinion, it’s good to
know many languages but one new language a year is too much. The most profound
thing in my opinion was that even though the book encourages you to read and
study IT related subjects, it still considers it meaningful to read
nontechnical books. For example, books about psychology and the world because
humans are going to be the ones in charge of the systems so it’s important to
know a lot about them.
My reactions for the book were quite
neutral. I learned something new, and most parts were interesting to read, but
there were many points that was just common sense, in my opinion, like that
programmers need to be responsible but that concerns everyone in life. I
thought the text was quite easy for me to read. I consider myself a good reader,
but of course, when discussing the finer details of topics such as computer
science and programming, I do not know the meaning of all the words –- at least
not yet.
Then shortly about my English learning
goals which are going as planned. I’ve managed to expand my vocabulary in
different topics. I’m still lacking in some words related to computer science
and programming, but that just means I still have some work to do. On top of
expanding my vocabulary, I would also like to try to understand different
English accents better. Information technology is important all around the
world, which is why it is significant to learn to work with people from
different countries and to hear various ways of speaking English and
pronouncing words. That’s all for today and I’ll see you soon with my new
posts.
I also think that my current English ability is far from enough to support my reading of computer-related books, but maybe this is an easy way to learn English.
VastaaPoistaI agree that one programming language a year is an overkill, unless you’re very passionate about it and treat it as a hobby. Otherwise, there’s simply no need to do so. Even if you work as a programmer, you’ll probably be working with the language that your company requires, and I think it’s better to focus on mastering a few that are related to your domain.
VastaaPoistaCertainly a classic to read. As a matter of fact, I agree with you on most things in the post. The goal of understanding accents was a new one to me. Actually one of best ones I've heard! Some accents vary so wildly even native speakers struggle.
VastaaPoistaMy reaction to The Pragmatic Programmer was the same. And I agree that it is hard to read that kind of text because of the new topics. Nice to hear that you have managed to expand your vocabulary!
VastaaPoistaI also enjoyed reading The Pragmatic Programmer, even though it's a lot harder to read technical text as you pointed out. Keep up the good work with your language learning goals!
VastaaPoistaThe pragmatic programmer, I feel like this book is so timeless it's probably got a built in function for avoiding obsolescence, but it's probably gotta be good. I like your take on not having to learn a language every year, I usually like to balance my IT career growth with other important activities such as playing hogwarts legacy until 3AM. Keep up with the whole "understanding different accents" thing, you got this!
VastaaPoistaI agree with you on the importance of psychology, whatever the science field may be, humans are the ones in charge. Your opinion about learning a new language every year is well put, but to me there should be an effort to make it true, even though the end goal may seem impossible to achieve. Keep up with the great blog updates!
VastaaPoista