Once again the pragmatic book series has scored a home run. Pragmatic Version Control is part 1 in a 3 part starter kit on pragmatic programming. It is 11 chapters long and has several appendices that give more detailed information not on using subversion, but administering and programming with it. The other two books cover in the series unit testing and project automation.

I have been using version control with Subversion (SVN) for about a year, so the first 5 chapters were just review, but there are sections that do expand on some of the basics. For beginners, the material is well laid out and should really help people avoid some of the pitfalls they will run into when starting with version control. The book is also written in a way that makes technical information easy to digest, understand, and retain. Typically the book will give a problem, show how subversion’s philosophy solves it, and then give a concrete example that the reader can quickly follow along with.

The really good stuff for me started in chapter 6 and ended in chapter 11. More specifically, section 6.4 on subversion properties like svn:externals, svn:autoprop, and svn:ignore. This will really help me make the most of the subversion system.

The next chapter (7) covers file locking and binary files. I didn’t really understand why this was an issue until they give an example of a CAD file or an Excel sheet that can never be merged but may be worked on by multiple people. I’m glad I know this and it will definitely come into play with our graphics designers and documentation systems (where we have to use Microsoft Word docs).

Chapter 8 covers organizing the repository, and I pretty much skipped this chapter. I’ve always used the typical trunk, tags, and branches layout, but I didn’t really know HOW to maximize the use of the branches and tags directory.

That is when I got to chapter 9, which is all about using tags and branches. After reading this chapter, I have a clear cut methodology for working with branches, tags, and how to use them quickly and effectively. If nothing else, this chapter alone makes the book work the purchase. Many projects get bogged down in an inconsistent mainline, and branch cycle and it causes a lot of confusion among team members (and even yourself when you go back to a project after some time). Having a clear cut way to work with branches and tags is vital, and this chapter also covers some of the more subtle gotchas you’re likely to run into.

All in all, yet another great book from the Pragmatic Programmers, and I’m looking forward to my delivery of the third book in the series – Pragmatic Automation.

While writing the book review for Atlas Shrugged, I hit up google for a few links. For the first time, it actually pulled up a site in the right hand site that I might be interested in. And the site is cool! John Galt Gear sells T-Shirts, bumper stickers, and other merchandise related to the Atlas Shrugged characters and ideas. I will probably be seen sporting some of this gear soon!

Wow. Stop reading this review and go buy this book immediately. It is that good. There are many many reviews of this book out there, so I’m going to be brief. Page for page, this book has had the most impact on my view of programming out of any programming material I’ve ever read.

The book covers a philosophy instead of tools, and that makes it an almost timeless piece. While they do at times point to particular technologies, they do not focus on those technologies and leave the references to a minimum so that the reader is free to apply the philosophy to their particular technology.

The book covers topics such as orthogonality, the DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself) principle, unit testing, automation, refactoring, and tools. I will probably make some posts that deal with the topics individually, so for now I’m only going to talk about some of the more impactful sections for me.

The first thing that really hit me was in Chapter 3, The Basic Tools. I’ve always just used the tools available to me on a particular platform that was easiest to learn. This gave me a small learning curve, but left out a lot of functionality. One of their first recommendations is to find a powerful text editor and learn it well. I looked at the options that are cross platform and went with vim. I’ll say it again here… WOW! My productivity went through the roof and I’ve now found plugins for firefox (vimperator) and Visual Studio (ViEmu) to mimic the base vi functionality in those environments. With a powerful text editor, I spend more time on the keyboard, making fewer keystrokes, to accomplish more than I ever thought possible.

The second section that really impacted me was at the end of the book talking about working as a Pragmatic Team. I’ve had some bad experiences with teams and this section spoke directly on how to mitigate the problems I had run into. This should be required reading for any project with more than a single developer.

All in all, the whole book is a gold mine of good advice and leads to other good information. It is a rather small book given the topics it covers, but the content is so well thought out and organized, I think it is just right.

I recently finished reading a great book by Ayn Rand called Atlas Shrugged. This particular book was given to me by a member of a professional organization I was part of years ago when I was a sophomore in college. She told me the book would change my view of life, but I managed to stick it on the shelf and ignore it. I picked it back up about 6 months ago and decided to give it a shot finally.

Let me tell you, this book is a life changer…

The book takes Rand’s philosophical idea called Objectivism and shows what happens when people of ability give up on the “moochers” and “looters” of the world. The world stops as the people who cannot do for themselves try to take by force the abilities of others. But that is not what really made this book remarkable for me.

What made this book remarkable for me was the attitude taken by the characters of ability. When something needed to be done, a decision made, etc, they did it, made it, or called on others who could do it. And they did not take crap from those who could not achieve that same level of ability. They traded value for value and recognized that value for what it was.

This impacted me because I think of myself as someone of ability. I have skills that I worked hard to fine tune and I use them tactfully. But I’ve never been able to put a name to that ability and what drove me to pursue it. Sure, I could sit on my hands and watch the world go by, and not try and better what is around me. But that is not how I work. And I don’t expect those around me to do that either.

So now I have a different view when interacting with people – I trade value for value and nothing else. It is a remarkable way to live and I enjoy it thoroughly.

If you think of yourself as someone that pursues knowledge for no other reason than to make yourself a more valuable person, to further your own ability, this is a must read.