The problem of teaching programming skills to new generations of software engineers is as old as the computers themselves. Each generation has tried to do it in a slightly different way, with various degrees of success. There is a lot of literature available online about the subject, and in this article we will point out papers and books that we found to be the most noteworthy. By no means this is an exhaustive list, but it features some interesting entries that might serve as a starting point for your own research.
Let us agree on one basic principle, one that most regular readers of this magazine already know is a core tenet at its heart: the phrase "Human Resources" is atrocious. There is no other way to describe the appalling sentiment and the contempt brought into our minds as we read such a contraption. Even worse, the fact that some people voluntarily choose to wear it as part of their professional title is beyond our comprehension. If you do not agree with this idea, you might want to stop reading altogether.
I am torn about this month's Library issue; I loved reading it, despite the many inaccuracies reported by third-party experts after its publication. The book in question is the "Histoire Universelle des Chiffres" ("From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers" in English) by Georges Ifrah, originally published in French, but also available in English and many other languages.
Every so often this magazine drifts away from the coverage of classic programming titles because its main objective is to stretch the brains of software practitioners towards other areas of knowledge, such as design, sociology, or science. Business books are one such area, and we should be covering more of those. But today we will talk about one that could rightfully be called the most important business book of the 21st century so far.
It would be unwise and useless to try to summarize in a thousand words the immense contributions of Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare, also known as Tony Hoare (I suppose we are all good friends in this industry) or, with a more Tolkien feeling, as C. A. R. Hoare. I will settle for “Sir Tony Hoare” in this article; familiar yet respectful enough.
Back in the 1980s and 1990s, one of the most appropriate locations in Buenos Aires to find international magazines was the quintessential Calle Florida. In those huge newsstands next to the corner with Avenida Corrientes one could find incunabula ranging from the September issue of Vogue to the latest edition of Paris Match. Among those, every so often my programmer self would jump in joy to find some lost computer magazine; and by far the one that made me the happiest to unearth was, without any doubt, Dr. Dobb's Journal.
Most software developers are ejected from academia into the jaws of the business of software with little preparation. Of course, they are equipped with good enough knowledge about some more or less relevant programming language, and maybe some algorithm, hopefully including the venerable linked list reversion, indispensable to pass the dreaded coding interview. But not much more.
Few ecosystems react as viscerally and as brutally to "bad" visual design than whatever Apple has brought into the world. From the first Macintosh to the latest Vision Pro, the whole idea of making apps for Apple platforms involves, hopefully sooner than later, a severe and serious evaluation of style along with functionality.
How do you start learning about computers? The opinions about this particular subject have a cardinality close to the number of computer scientists or IT professionals on the planet. Everyone will have their own opinion, but a single book published in 2000 might have helped everyone reach an agreement, and that is no small feat.
A quick review of previous entries in the Library section of this magazine shows that it does not feature any book from The Pragmatic Programmers, for no other reason than gross oversight. We have discussed books from MIT Press, Addison-Wesley, O'Reilly, and many other publishing houses, and now it is time to solve this issue. This month we will elaborate on "Pragmatic Version Control Using Git", a 2008 book by Travis Swicegood.