Review by : Mohamed Sanaulla
Rating : 10 horseshoes
I would say that this is a must read book for all the programmers. Its packed with much needed advice in the current scenario. If you aren't much exposed to the industry (may be you are freshmen), I dont think the book might make much sense. Because lot of ideas discussed in the book would directly apply to your daily activities. We always think that programmers are professionals, but author in the book clearly mentions what it takes to be a professional programmer.
Author takes us along each chapter using either anecdotes related to his life and work or by using conversations between key people relevant to the topic. This way you dont get bored while reading through the topics and can understand the possible type of implementation of the idea.
Author has covered testing and its related strategies over 3 chapters, this shows how important testing is for a product. I got to know in detail about TDD, and other testing strategies and now I can connect these ideas to my work.
Not only technical aspects but also personality development related topics are covered in the book giving the reader a possible all round development.
I found the anecdotes were a lot repeated, but its makes sense because few of them had lot of lessons to be learnt. Few specifications of computers were hard to understand, but it helped me to imagine the skill of the programmers in those 70s and 80s when the technology was still at a nascent stage.
I learnt a lot of new tool names, new testing techniques and few tips for improving my productivity at work and also to learnt the importance of continuous learning and practicing. Overall it was a really good read, managed to complete most of the chapters in one sitting
---
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for writing this review on behalf of CodeRanch.
More info at Amazon.com 
