Recent Posts by Andrew Hunt

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Final version for download

The final PDF is out, and we’ve started shipping paper books already (it usually takes a couple of days to get them all out).

Enjoy!

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Last Beta

Well this is it! We’re headed off to the printers now and should have printed books available in just a coupe of weeks.

Thanks to everyone for posting errata and asking questions, it is assuredly a better book for your efforts.

/\ndy

Topic: A Peek at Computer Electronics / Printed version

Keep posting and asking for it, and we may well consider printing this title.

thanks!

/\ndy

Topic: The Pragmatic Programmer / PDF version

This title (the very first book Dave and I wrote) is published by Addison Wesley. We do not have the rights to sell a PDF version for this edition at this time.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Release date

Today, in fact. All errata reported to date has been cleared, all text content is complete.

It’s off to the copyeditor now, then on to index and final layout. I’ll be fixing some of the diagrams between now and then, and of course anything else ya’ll find.

thanks!

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Release date

Soon.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Artists and other weirdos

Well that’s a really good question. I hope that you’ll find it interesting, if for no other reason than to gain insight on this intense L-mode types :-)

Please let me know if you find the book useful, or if you have any suggestions for things you’d like to know (feel free to email me personally as well).

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Working With Knowledge or Manage Focus ?

They are the same—I renamed the chapter, as “working with knowledge” is only a part of the larger topic of Focus in general.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Chap 8 & 9

Thanks! I’m finishing up the last real chapter now, and hope to post it to beta sometime in the next couple of days (ish). Then there’s the final, summary chapter, followed by a massive pass through the whole wad cleaning up stuff.

Please be sure to post errata and suggestions, especially for topics you’d like to see more of, or topics you think I’ve spent too much time on.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Suggestion for fixing future spelling and grammar errors

Anthony,

We do use spell check, but of course for various reasons mistakes do creep in. That’s why we use professional copy editors upon publication. Without them, Beta versions will necessarily be a little rough around the edges.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Tookit or Toolkit

Joshua—

Thanks for spotting these, but could you please post to the errata database at http:/pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/errata ?

thanks.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / New Chapter

Almost. I’m hoping to release it at the end of this week or over the weekend.
Thanks!

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Taking notes 24x7

I’ve had a couple of readers point out some neat gear for note taking:

• Jeremy Sydik recommends the Zebra T3 series pens

• Daniel Higginbotham is a fan of this small leather notepad wallet from Levenger

Enjoy!

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Documenting is more important than documentation

A dangerous statement, but it’s also a great truth. The opposite of a great truth, of course, is another great truth :-)

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Dreyfus model?

Richard,

Thanks for you posting—a couple of comments:

“the focus on Dreyfus seems like its weakest point”. I don’t necessarily disagree, but I’d like to point out that I’ve received a great many emails from folks who found this to be a great revelation. I agree with your assessment that his observations “comes down to applied common sense” but remember that much of this line of thought is brand new to many (most?) people.

I did read “On Intelligence” and was very, very impressed with it. I think he really emphasizes that everything is pattern matching—and prediction. I think that plays to the heart of your comment about “what I’m seeing isn’t matching what I’ve expected”.

Now here’s the question: I’m trying very, very hard to keep this book to a manageable size, under about 250 pages or so. I’m finding that quite difficult :-). This is such a vast area to explore, and every book I read has pointers to 20 other really interesting works and so on. So I have to be pretty ruthless in trying to stick to the tips of these icebergs, and also to keep the book very practical.

WIth that in mind, I don’t want to shortchange the reader either, so if you think I’ve really fallen short anywhere here do let me know.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Next Chapter Please

Heh heh. I love a captive audience :-)

You should see the email I’m getting as well. I might have to leave off the next chapter with a cliff-hanger, just to really turn up the heat!

I hope to have the next bit out tomorrow (Monday). A few features will slide to the next iteration.

Please email or post more feedback; topics you’d like to see me go into more deeply, topics that I’ve bored you with, etc.

thanks!

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Next Chapter Please

Well that clearly didn’t work :-) I should have the next bit ready in a couple of days, thanks for your patience!

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Dreyfus model?

There’s work based on the model that has been tried and proven in the field, but outside of computer science or software engineering. Dr. Patricia Benner started the ball rolling in the field of nursing, and has published extensively on the subject. So it’s not so much a matter of “We all read that book and thought it was plausible” as it is “yeah, we’ve seen that too.”

If you’d like to read further about this subject, and on the successful application of this model over the last 20+ years, Dr. Benner is a good place to start.

Also, you state “in order to attain expertise one ought to, even has to, master these levels”. That’s not the case, and I hope I haven’t given you that impression. These are not skills to master, they are observations of your capabilities along a spectrum. The levels are not rigidly fixed; you don’t wake up on Tuesday as an Expert. It’s a long journey, and these are helpful roadsigns along the way, indicating where you are on the path, and where you’re headed.

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Dreyfus model?

What would you want a “rigorous scientific test” to tell you, exactly?

Has test-driven development been put to a rigorous scientific test? Does it provide you value anyway?

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Next Chapter Please

I’m planning on releasing the next chapter this Friday, with any luck :-)

thanks,

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / programming as the glass bead game

Not at all! Long posts are always welcome.

I read The Glass Bead Game a few years ago, and yes, I agree. Parts of it really resonated with me—I had a group of friends once where we developed a similar game. We’d try and see how long you could carry on a conversation strictly using movie quotes, song lyrics, literary quotes, etc. Some many years later there was a Star Trek episode that effect, where an alien race befuddled the universal translator because they always spoke in metaphors, using their shared cultural references as source material.

Patterns and metaphor is what it’s all about.

/\ndy

Topic: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware / Welcome!

This forum is for discussions of Refactoring Your Wetware: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning.

Enjoy!

/\ndy