“97 Things Every Programmer Should Know”

ed. Kevlin Henney

Reviewing a “collected wisdom” book like this is rather difficult, as not only is there not a single plot line throughout it, there’s not even a single core idea to it. It is, in fact, 97 core ideas, each told in a couple of pages. Which does make it easy to pick up and put down, and read in fits and starts. The quality and relevancy of the advice varied, although not in precisely the way you’d expect—there’s a fair few that, with what they referenced, felt very dated but gave advice that remains useful, and then there were a couple that felt dated and gave dated advice. Itself a useful reminder that, for all the field likes being the latest and greatest, newest shiniest, age does not mandate that a piece of wisdom has grown less useful over time.

So hey, the book club at work continues to provide interesting books to read, and this was another one. Give it a read – you can pick up a physical copy1 or read it online through the O’Reilly library.