Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition

  • Your Journey to Mastery
  • By: David Thomas, Andrew Hunt
  • Narrated by: Anna Katarina
  • Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (354 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition cover art

The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition

By: David Thomas,Andrew Hunt
Narrated by: Anna Katarina
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £14.99

Buy Now for £14.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

Modern Software Engineering cover art
Fundamentals of Software Architecture cover art
The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide cover art
Clean Architecture cover art
Clean Code cover art
The Design of Everyday Things cover art
Software Engineering at Google cover art
Staff Engineer cover art
The Staff Engineer's Path cover art
Building Microservices cover art
Designing Data-Intensive Applications cover art
The Unicorn Project cover art
Algorithms to Live By cover art
The Phoenix Project cover art
Soft Skills cover art
The DevOps Handbook, Second Edition cover art

Summary

The Pragmatic Programmer is one of those rare tech audiobooks you’ll listen, re-listen, and listen to again over the years. Whether you’re new to the field or an experienced practitioner, you’ll come away with fresh insights each and every time. 

Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt wrote the first edition of this influential book in 1999 to help their clients create better software and rediscover the joy of coding. These lessons have helped a generation of programmers examine the very essence of software development, independent of any particular language, framework, or methodology, and the Pragmatic philosophy has spawned hundreds of books, screencasts, and audio books, as well as thousands of careers and success stories. 

Now, 20 years later, this new edition re-examines what it means to be a modern programmer. Topics range from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible and easy to adapt and reuse. All the old favorite topics are there, updated for this new world. And there's a bunch of new content, reflecting what we've learned in the intervening years. 

Whether you’re a new coder, an experienced programmer, or a manager responsible for software projects, use these lessons daily, and you’ll quickly see improvements in personal productivity, accuracy, and job satisfaction. You’ll learn skills and develop habits and attitudes that form the foundation for long-term success in your career. You’ll become a pragmatic programmer. 

This audiobook is organized as a series of sections, each containing a series of topics. It is read by Anna Katarina; Dave and Andy (and a few other folks) jump in every now and then to give their take on things. 

©2019 Pearson Education, Inc (P)2020 David Thomas and Andrew Hunt

What listeners say about The Pragmatic Programmer: 20th Anniversary Edition, 2nd Edition

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    280
  • 4 Stars
    60
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    248
  • 4 Stars
    33
  • 3 Stars
    11
  • 2 Stars
    2
  • 1 Stars
    1
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    226
  • 4 Stars
    48
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    4
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Underwhelming

This was hailed as one of the all-time greatest books in the field of software development. Alongside “Clean Code”. Another waste of ink. Allow me to save you the seven bucks and the ten hours of your time with a summary: “Don’t be an idiot.” In Dutch we have a saying that loosely translates to “kicking in open doors”. Taking all the obvious frivoulous factoids that everybody already knows intuitively, and compiling them into a book, dedicating a chapter to every last one of them. Here are some of the key takeaways:

- Take responsibility for your work.
- Learn new things to stay up to date.
- An estimate of “163 days” sounds more accurate than “about 6 months”.
- Don’t write messy code.

And more nuggets of wisdom. There is a plethora of coding books to choose from. Keep looking.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

35 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Worthy audiobook

So this was my first audiobook ever. I've heard a lot about the original book, and wanted to try out an audiobook to listen to my commute.

The audiobook is fantastic, code examples are illustrated very well.

The content is worthy and needed for all programmers.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A must listen for all programmers old and new

I identify myself as a programmer. I started coding for over 35 years back in the days when COBOL, dBase II were the languages of the day for me and the new IBM PC and Apple ][ were the new revolution. Recently I have returned to programming after a decade in management and the sales of technology. This book has helped me confirm what principles are still valid and what may not be so fashionable.

A few things I liked in no particular order:-
- Version control ie git should always be used even if you are a team of one
- My doubts 20 years ago about inheritance are shared by many
- Respect the culture of the language you use their name styles
- Plain text is the default
- Testing needs to be ingrained in the project from the start

I liked the style of the audiobook it was a good balance for a technical book that doesn't always transfer well to audio

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Content great, delivery poor

Content of this book is fantastic, but the audio quality is very poor. Seems like its being recorded on a phone.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Awesome

What can I say this is a must read / listen to book for any programmer or software individual.

Many thanks to the authors and book for making this a enjoyable read / listen to

Simon @ big boffin dot com

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

I loved it!

I loved it! As a beginner in programming, I have learned a lot of tips and best practices from this book that I have immediately applied to my work.👍 The book is engaging and kerps you hook till the end as well. Thank you to the authors and editors for this great book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book. Easy to listen to

I really enjoyed this book. You might not agree with everything said. But the authors do explain they're opinions well. And you will definitely gain new understanding and take-aways from this book. The book didn't include too many code examples but where it did they were consice enough to read out. It's also nice that they clearly put a lot of effort into transforming the book for the audio book format.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Dated and it shows

I rarely leave reviews but reading through this book is extremely tasking. Not because the content, because the writers subjective poison the otherwise realistic advise. The examples are dated and walk a tight morral high ground that, if like me, you disagree with, makes the useful content very difficult to extract. For example, instructing readers to "pay attention to your surroundings". I know many of the boomer generation who are very complacent with their environment but I know very few gen-x who can overlook small things that contribute to the whole. The book pays no mind to the mental health impact on the readers, instead opts to instruct to deceive your boss, make personal sacrefise for the benefit of the company and/or suggests poor treatment to those who package their message badly. This view is poorly equity for a modern workplace where mental health is a priority, corporations are taking advantage and just keeping a job is a daily struggle. If someone comes to me explaining why the code is late, I listen, I am compassionate and I try to work with them to resolve the situation. This book suggests they are wrong to be so honest, wrong for making the mistake and I should ignore them in future. This book makes me angry on a daily basis but, unlike the authors, I strive to understand others perspectives and that means appreciation of their situation not criticism.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Something for everyone

Good for those old and new - a lot of things I had previously known subconsciously, brought to light. New things were also introduced to me and have already been used effectively in my work.

Good narration - S's were a bit harsh but likely fault of audio equipment during recording. There are a few code narrations and when listening whilst driving, they are just impossible to visualise - luckily, they're mostly extra to drive a point home.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Classic

The 20th anniversary edition is worth a read even if you read the original. This is indispensable. Make sure the whole team reads it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!