After Justice Gray's bubbling fan boy review of this book I thought I should go and check it out. I have to say I almost share as much enthusiasm as he does.

I found the book really well written and concise. The book goes though many of the things I have learnt the hard way like duplication is evil, designing by contract, minimize coupling, and a bunch more. I found everything hits the nail on the head without killing the hammer. I never found myself disagreeing with the book or thinking something should be added. To me that is pretty impressive for a book to do things that well.

I feel that this book should be required reading in programming courses. Its a fast read, there is no code, and nothing really that hard to understand. What it does provide though is a lot of wisdom and junior programmers always need wisdom (and lets not fool ourselves, intermediates and seniors as well). If there was one book I would hand a new developer it would be this book (followed by about 10 other books... but that is another post). So if you have not checked it out yet go pickup a copy of The Pragmatic Programmer.