The Pragmatic Programmer is a small book about the best practices to be a “Pragmatic” Programmer. It talks about handling software projects with large teams, changing requirements and complex environments.
I liked the first chapter where it goes through the philosophy of pragmatic engineers. I have been following these practices for years but i haven’t see them actually written somewhere. things, like investing in personal portofolio, are the best investment an engineer can do. well, They apply to any field not just engineering.
It was easy one to read. I actually read it in two days. And it had several funny jokes (well, they were funny to me!). It’s not very technical book but it does mention some design patterns, methodologies, devops tools but it refers to other technical references for more details.
That said, most of the practices are obvious for modern software engineers. Things like version control, metadata and continuous integration are the norm in the industry now. That said, this edition was written in 2000 and these things weren’t popular back then. Generally, It’s very useful book, I am just readying it 20 years late :).