Don't leave "broken windows" (bad designs, wrong decisions, or poor code) unrepaired.
-- Dave Thomas, Andy Hunt: "The Pragmatic Programmer"
When I started on my first programming job, I was quickly becoming aware of the fact that my time was finite.
I began to realize I would never learn all frameworks. All languages. All platforms. Perhaps not even a single language in its full entirety.
I understood that if I'm going to learn something I'll be able to use before it becomes obsolete, it would have to be fundamental principles.
I was lucky I worked with a team of experienced developers who talked a lot about what they learnt - both recently and during their careers.
They also had a rack filled with books related to programming.
One in particular stood out: "The Pragmatic Programmer".
I lent it, and started reading. I appreciated the point-by-point format of the guide through the principles discovered by the authors.
That's where I first learnt how important it is to automate everything that can be productively automated. "Productively" meaning: it costs approximately the same amount of time to automate the thing as it costs to run the process manually a few times.
The "broken window" principle quoted in the beginning referred to an interesting discovery. Someone noted that an abandoned house will typically not fall into ruin until and unless one of its windows gets broken.
The authors noted similarity of a software project to a home.
They concluded: if something about your code is broken (a design, a decision, an implementation), and the value of that part is both: significant enough, and visible like a window is from the street, your project will gradually decay from then on. That decay - they stressed - will be a direct result of the broken part not getting fixed over time.
During my work there, I kept this book on my desk to remind myself of the principles I was learning.
If you ask if lessons from there are still relevant in 2025, I'll reply that in 2021 somebody said:
The Pragmatic Programmer is still the standard handbook of best engineering practices.
-- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29182386
There was nothing in the book inherently tied to the time it was written in. The book was about software, and about writing too.
We still use software, and we still write a lot. Hence, the book hasn't lost any of its relevance so far.
One of the most significant books in my life.
— Obie Fernandez, Author of "The Rails Way", about book "The Pragmatic Programmer"
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