Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers)

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I wanted to like this book. I really did. The subject of how to go from beginner to master is valuable information indeed. The problem that I have with the book is the continual references to the "L-Mode", "R-Mode" or left brain/right brain thinking that comes from Betty Edwards book about how to draw and how "brain lateralization" affects drawing. This book takes Edwards writings on L-Mode and R-Mode and then applies them to programming.

Unfortunately, Edwards' theory is not science, it's pseudoscience.

Edwards' work draws on old research, the newest being 1985, which is very old when you consider how much research in neuroscience there has been in the last 2 decades. Jessy Dorn has published an article on BrainConnection that goes through the problems with Edwards' L-Mode vs R-Mode theory.

Pragmatic Thinking presents Edward's theory as science, which it clearly is not. It's one thing to say that you subscribe to a debatable theory, but it's quite another thing to just present it as being scientifically based, when it's not. [...]. The [...] then builds on this [...], which is what gets the downgrades from me. A very nasty side effect, though is that this is a very popular [...] and now a bunch of people are going to repeat this entire "L-Mode/R-Mode" [...] and propagate the myth even further. Do a web search and you'll see that it's already happened.

I tend to gravitate towards books that explore how the mind works, and how you might be able to manipulate it into better performance. Naturally, when I saw that Andy Hunt's Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware had been released, it went up on my to-be-reviewed list. Hunt does a great job in exploring your "wetware", and there were some chapters that squarely addressed certain issues I'm currently dealing with.

Content:

Journey from Novice to Expert: Novices vs. Experts; The Five Dreyfus Model Stages; Dreyfus at Work - Herding Racehorses and Racing Sheep; Using the Dreyfus Model Effectively; Beware the Tool Trap; Consider the Context, Again; Day-to-Day Dreyfus

This Is Your Brain: Your Dual-CPU Modes; Capture Insight 24x7; Linear and Rich Characteristics; Rise of the R-mode; R-mode Sees Forest, L-mode Sees Trees; DIY Brain Surgery and Neuroplasticity; How Do You Get There?

Get in Your Right Mind: Turn Up the Sensory Input; Draw on the Right Side; Engage an R-mode to L-mode Flow; Harvest R-mode Cues; Harvesting Patterns; Get It Right

Debug Your Mind: Meet Your Cognitive Biases; Recognize Your Generational Affinity; Codifying Your Personality Tendencies; Exposing Hardware Bugs; Now I Don't Know What to Think

Learn Deliberatively: What Learning Is... and Isn't; Target SMART Objectives; Create a Pragmatic Investment Plan; Use Your Primary Learning Mode; Work Together, Study Together; Used Enhanced Learning Techniques; Read Deliberately with SQ3R; Visualize Insight with Mind Maps; Harness the Real Power of Documenting; Learn by Teaching; Take It to the Streets

Gain Experience: Play in Order to Learn; Leverage Existing Knowledge; Embed Failing in Practice; Learn About the Inner Game; Pressure Kills Cognition; Imagination Overrides Senses; Learn It like an Expert

Manage Focus: Increase Focus and Attention; Defocus to Focus; Manage Your Knowledge; Optimize Your Current Context; Manage Interruptions Deliberately; Keep a Big Enough Context; How to Stay Sharp

Beyond Expertise: Effective Change; What to Do Tomorrow Morning; Beyond Expertise

Photo Credits; Bibliography; Index

Hunt starts with something called the Dreyfus model, which is a way to look at how people learn and acquire new skills. You start as a Novice, someone who has little to no experience. You can follow a "recipe" to get a result, but you don't know the reasons behind much of what is being done. You're just accomplishing a task. Next comes Advanced Beginner. You can break out of the step-by-step mode a bit, but troubleshooting is still a major obstacle. Think of it as having no "big picture" of the overall subject. Stage 3 is Competent. You can start to apply your knowledge to problems you haven't encountered before, and you can figure out the context behind what you're facing. This is where the largest group of people end up. Stage 4 is Proficient, which means you need the details AND the overall picture. You can learn from the mistakes of others, and anticipate what may go wrong down the road. At the final stage, you have the Expert. These people are the ones others seek out for answers. They can "feel" whether an answer or solution will work or not, although they might not be able to tell you how they got to that point. These are the people who write books like this...

This made a lot of sense to me, and helps as I start to learn a new set of technical skills at my place of employment. It's hard to go from being proficient in one area to stepping clear back to novice again. But it's ok, and everyone has to start there. That gives me a level of comfort knowing that my confusion is normal, and is to be expected...

Throughout the rest of the book, Hunt covers various areas of the mind, how it works (or doesn't), and how it can be manipulated to be more efficient. For instance, the R-mode/L-mode discussion covers how your right and left sides of the brain process information differently. It also explains how you can inadvertently "shut down" the right side by being too analytical about something. The simple act of walking away from the problem and thinking about nothing in particular can be enough to let the right side of the brain gain access to the forefront of your attention. And quite often, the answer appears almost immediately. These chapters are heavy on practical tips and "try the following" advice, so it's not merely an exercise in acquiring knowledge. Even a handful of these ideas, properly implemented, can boost your ability to learn and perform. In my case, they already have started paying off.

The "drawback" to books like this is that everyone has a different idea about how things actually happen in the brain. Others might read this and feel that their ideas and mental frameworks are more accurate. But for the vast majority of us, we don't even stop to consider if there even *is* a framework in action. Refactoring Your Wetware is an excellent read, and will motivate you to start "thinking about thinking".

If you have read and loved any of Andy's books like the foundational book "The Pragmatic Programmer", you will not be disappointed here. Those of us that are constantly chasing the changing technologies and despite our best efforts continue to fall behind, this book gives some amazing insight into learning more effectively. I must admit I have not completed the book yet. But even with less than half of the book behind me, I feel empowered to begin approaching my career development (programmer) with new found optimism and enthusiasm.

Put down (temporarily) whatever "must learn" tech book you are stumbling through right now and pick this one up. When Andy is finished with you, I guarantee you will be able to "pick up" that new technology more quickly. I don't know how many new technologies I've waded into and felt discouraged because despite my best efforts, it was taking too long for me to 'get it'.

On another note, if you have been a fan of GTD (Getting Things Done) and still feel something was missing, I sincerely think Andy's helpful hints will give you the skills you need to get the most out of your brain.

I'm going to be a dissenter among all the praise the other reviewers are heaping on this book. I bought it because of the acclaim here so I feel I should warn other people considering this book that it may not be as great as it seems. Between all the anecdotes, references to The Pragmatic Programmer (a good book but why so much self-promotion?) and pointless pictures (a mention of the automatic sewing machine is followed by a half-page diagram of one; an expert software developer is apparently a wizard so there's a half page illustration of an evil-looking wizard; many pages are filled like this)... wait, what was I talking about? Oh yes, and all those sidebars that go off on a tangent and distract from the main text. Between all that stuff there's not a whole lot of useful, actionable content with which to "Refactor Your Wetware". And what content there is won't be very exciting to anyone who already spends much time learning on their own. This book could be helpful to people entering high school but if you're already successful at learning new skills and are looking to sharpen your edge I suggest you consider Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School instead of this book.

I was induced by the reviews of this book to buy it. When I started reading it I recognized that most of the ideas were familiar, so I started looking for a new insights. I even tried doing the exercises, which are haphazardly designed and not well integrated (there is no follow-up, no progression, no building on previous material).

When I read the instructions for mindfulness meditation, I realized something was wrong. One of the crucial instructions runs counter to the tradition and will tie you up in knots. For me, that summed up the problem with this book. It is a bit like an enthusiastic water-cooler discussion. Everything is a little vague and unreliable, so it is up to you to track down the really useful, reliable information somewhere else on your own.

If you own the book already, I think that the best and safest use of it might be to skip the text and chase down any references that the writer gives you. You will wind up with more books, but the material will be accurate and useful. If you rely on this book by itself, you will get excited about a lot of cool-sounding ideas and then wonder why you can't get them to work for you.`

Examples of primary source books and software that you will be better off with (there are many others):

o Any decent book on mindfulness or insight meditation --Jon Kabat-Zinn covers mindfulness well. Or you could start with Sharon Salzberg and/or Joseph Goldstein on the closely related tradition of insight meditation: a spiritual practice without a dogma.

o Peter Elbow: "Writing with Power" -- a spectacular assist for any kind of writing. The writer's-block-avoidance approaches work well for programming and designing. A must read for any kind of intellectual worker.

o For those of us who find mind-mapping useless: Wikipad

o "The Memory Book" by Harry Lorayne. Most of the useful stuff about learning that is hinted at in "Pragmatic Thinking..." is actually made available to you by Lorayne.

o For convincing your boss and colleagues: "Rapid Development" by Steve McConnell. "PeopleWare" by Tom DeMarco. "Rapid Development" has graphs of how much money your company will lose if they don't pay attention.

I am not a computer programmer. My days are not spent knee-deep in code. As a Six Sigma Black Belt I work to redesign financial process.

So why am I writing this review? If you are a computer programmer this book will be invaluable. If you are a Knowledge Worker this book will be equally invaluable. A majority of the books I read wind up at a used bookstore. This gem has a permanent spot on my bookcase.

Last week I provided Green Belt training to a group of Senior Managers. I applied the Dreyfus model and it worked great. In Management Skill they were at the 'Proficient' level. I relied on a big picture message. In Statistics they were more 'Advanced Beginner'. I went with a rules based approach and fed them rapid information.

Likewise, I have since adopted Mind Mapping. I had read about the tool previously but felt it to be frivolous. I never really 'got it'. Your discussion of Linear versus Rich thinking drove the point home.

Two days ago my CEO gave a high level speech, filled with strategy and abstract concepts. If I had just listened I would have tuned out after a few minutes. Instead I mapped out the concepts on paper and I really 'got it'. I had a thorough command of the information based on relative relationships.

Thank you Andy!

I've always heard that a mans prime is from the age of 18 to 25. I worried about that and weather or not I was ever going to be able to learn like I once was able to. This book is exactly what I needed and the timing couldn't have been better. Within 3 days of purchase I am please to say it was one of the best reads cover to cover I have had in ages. I have the strength and courage to take on new programming endeavours and for that I am in debt to you and the Pragmatic team. I would highly recommend this to anyone.

This book is an interesting read. It is not the common programmers book, I would say 95% of it will be clear to people out of the software industry.
There is some good abstraction about how our brain is built with some interesting observations. There are also some good insights about learning and expertise in general.

On the other hand this books gives little pragmatic advices. I cannot think of many practical things I now do better than before I read this book. Mmmm... Mind Maps are nice, but not a "big deal". Dreyfus model is insightful but not revolutionary.

I guess this book and its ideas are a bit premature. Maybe a second edition in 5 years from now, after a lot of feedback to Andy about these ideas, can be titled "pragmatic".

For now, I recommend reading this interesting and relatively unique book - but don't expect it to change your life.

I told my co-workers they should only bother with this book if they were interested in programming or thinking. :-) Like almost all of the books in the Pragmatic series this book pays for itself in the first few pages. The simple assertion that you write code in your brain not in an editor was worth the price of admission. Besides being a software developer I'm also a Tai Chi instructor and I was struck by how applicable the book is to both endevours. This book is what the military calls a force multiplier...rather than just teaching you a new fact/skill/technology it helps teach you how to learn, and that can be applied across the board. Its also a fun read.

I must admit I am a fan of the Pragmatic Programmers and their books in general. In the past I found their work to be well researched, direct, and useful. I found this book to be no exception.

I think what I liked best about the work was it was focused on solving the hard to describe problems of organizing your thoughts, how to change the way you think to match the problem, and even how to manage your time / interruptions to get these things done. Personally, I a big fan of mind maps, wikis, and GTD (getting things done). Andy added some nice additions (for me) to the topics, such as encouraging people to doodle on their mind maps and then try to figure what additional information/ideas these doodles are adding. I've been using wiki style editing in standard text editors for taking notes, but his suggestion on adding this capability to the ipod was intriguing.

I could list more, but I think the real value of the book is that Andy takes some really good ideas (some of which you might have seen elsewhere), puts them in one place, walks you through them systematically and puts his own additional useful suggestions that take you to the next step. Great Job!

When the Greek Gods realized they needed to hide the secrets of the universe from mankind they called a summit: they argued and argued until a quiet introverted lesser god got tired of the bickering and spoke up...'let's hide it inside of them...its the last place they'll look!' And so it has become, until people like Andy Hunt began suspecting the truth. Worse yet for the Greek Gods, people began writing down the road map and making it available on places like amazon.com. My suspicion is the Greek Gods are not going to be inviting Andy to the annual ball...
But honestly, this is becoming one of my favorite books and I highly recommend it's reading and practice! Thanks Andy!

I was thrilled when I learned about this book and I waited impatiently for it to arrive from Amazon. Boy, was I disappointed!

The idea of such a book is great, somebody should have done it. The execution though is the one that is bad. The book is mostly focused around small number of defining concepts, which are supposed to explain and substantiate all the facts about the way brain works and the suggestions of how to become more efficient in whatever you do. These concepts are the L-mode and R-mode of the brain, the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, and the metaphoric comparison of a brain with a two-CPU computer.

Unfortunately, L/R-mode theory is now considered wrong and dated (the theory is more than 20 years old -- a lot has happened in neuroscience since then), and basing and substantiation suggestions on it is questionable. Even though the suggestions themselves are mostly reasonable and useful (in case you have not come up with them on your own yet), the constant L/R-mode preaching makes an impression of somebody selling you snake oil. The L/R-mode explanations make up a bulk of the book, sound really fishy, and get annoying pretty quickly.

Dreyfus model, although somewhat useful in some fields, not too useful in the context of research work and science (and any non-trivial software engineering), where things are a tad more complicated [note: this is my personal opinion, don't take my word on it and read about it elsewhere if you want]. That wouldn't be a problem, if Dreyfus model wasn't used throughout the book to explain things.

Comparing a brain with a two-CPU computer is just blatantly wrong, the way the brain works is not even in vicinity of how CPUs (and the related wiring) work -- just read some other books and research papers on the subject. Thus using the metaphor abundantly in a book which tries to give an impression of a book where the facts are checked and substantiated is questionable.

Of course, that's not all. I found many places in the text where something was stated (which wasn't obviously true or false), but as if it was following from some other facts. If you're not careful enough when reading, you are likely to learn something that isn't.

Less important things which I didn't like: the narration and the design/formatting/images and text relevance. From the start the author notes that this book is not necessarily intended for programmers, however the text is full of irrelevant programming allusions which would bore any non-programmer to death, without any chance of getting any useful meaning from the allusion. Heck, I'm a programmer and I was bored and struck with superfluity of these examples. Oh, and don't forget about smileys in the text. Don't get me wrong, I'm not narrow-minded, however I still believe that well-edited text in a book on a serious topic could do without smileys and still be able to communicate jocular mood if there's need for it. The book is full of irrelevant examples and images (I love images, provided they are useful!), take the "unix wizard" image as an example. There's even an awful attempt at infographics (p.229, fig.8.4, "Relative IQ point loss") which takes almost half a page and is really a bad example of using a bar chart.

Another annoying thing is that another book by the same author - "Pragmatic Programmer" - is praised persistently throughout the text. Although it's not a bad book, there should be some restraint in self-advertising.

To be fair, there are some good suggestions and practices. It's rather unfortunate that they get diluted by a mush of bad science and lacking narration.

Verdict: if you want to spend your time reading a good book on the topic, go read something else, for example, Medina's Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, Weinberg's Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach, or DeMarco's Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition).

I had this book on my Wish List for a long time before I decided to buy it. Why? I figured that yet another book on mind mapping and other brain train techniques would not add an awful lot what I already knew. Boy was I wrong. Yes, brain training is a good part of this book but it offers far more than that. The Dreyfus model does not only help you to place yourself on your own journey to being an expert (if that is what you want) but it also provides invaluable insights into how to work with others, keeping their strengths and weaknesses in clear sight. Next, getting in the right 'brain mode' will help you to apply those brain train methods far more effectively than you'll have done until now. At least it did for me. Andy explains just how to tune your mind to the right frequency to pick up all those little nuggets of gold that would normally get lost in the static.

I could go on like this for a while, mentioning 'brain debugging', personal investment plans or how I actually started applying the deliberate learning techniques outlined in this book while reading it and came out with a far more ready recollection of its content, even weeks later. But in short, you should get this book. The information in this book will apply to you whether you are a computer scientist, work in sales or manage your local cooking club as a hobby.

I typically don't write reviews. Nor do I e-mail authors about their books. I e-mailed Andy Hunt because I was ecstatic after finishing this book. Now I'm writing a review because I feel that people should realize that this book is still relevant, still accurate, and still impressive.
This is one of the best books I've read in the past couple of years. I'm going to try and not repeat information available in the other reviews and just focus on some of the best things I took away from this incredible reading and learning experience.

First of all, the book's content is well researched in addition to offering interpretation by the author and what it means to you as an individual as well as a member of the software industry. The writing style is witty without getting derailed, and the intelligent and concise explanations are refreshing. The book's forum also has great posts and discussions regarding the content that bring to light the evolutionary process of the book and why certain material was included and expanded upon whereas other material was reduced or cut outright; Andy kept his promise of keeping the book lightweight and around 250 pages.

Secondly, the exercises and tips offered throughout the book are invaluable. Of the many advocated, I'm going to list just the few I've tried that have already made a significant impact on me:

1. Morning Pages. I cannot list out the value of this exercise. Try it yourself for just 3 weeks, and you will believe me. I'm an avid fan on my first day.

2. Place the words "CONSIDER THE CONTEXT" in large letters on your whiteboard at work.

3. Get a notebook, such as a Moleskine, and just start writing. Take notes, be pedantic, and write blog entries later to be transcribed onto your computer, whatever. It will definitely assist in your R-Mode to L-Mode flow.

4. Meditation. The breathing exercises listed here give us a pause for our mind to start subconsciously working out problems, and let us relax and take a break. 20 minutes a day is advocated, but I prefer more.

5. If you have an iPhone or an iTouch (iPod Touch for you crazy Mac people), grab the Oblique Strategies app, and if you don't, go out and get the cards.

6. Mental preparation. Think about the problem/challenge you face, and think out a way to approach the problem. Just actively thinking about getting a resolution will assist so much before you even attempt it.

7. Imagining success. If you imagine succeeding before you actually do it, the giant leap becomes more of a narrow gap. This ties in with #6 above.

8. Believe you're the expert/authority. If you imagine yourself as the expert or the "pro" of a certain area, then you can rely more on your intuition and yourself. This lets you more easily do numbers 6 and 7, as well.

9. Role-playing. Act out a role or part of the complex problem, or your class design, or what-have-you. You'll see a lot of real-time information.
If nothing else, pick up this book to learn about a skill acquisitions model that could possibly work for you, and if not, may work for others and you can understand their approach to learning better. It's a great book about cognitive science and human behavior that has been pertinent to me and others in our industry.

Thanks,
Ahad L. Amdani

There is no question that anyone who purchases this book as a guide to thinking and learning in the professions will find several valuable techniques that are worth many times the price of the book. I am ecstatic to own this bag of tricks to learn faster and decide more accurately. My only minor nit as one who studies psychophysiology is that it claims to be based on the latest findings in cognitive neuroscience and academic psychology. It is rather the results of a master programmer and consultant's search for better techniques that he and others can use to learn more quickly and more efficiently exploit professional knowledge. In that this book succeeds in its purpose offering many valuable heuristics, some of which everyone will find valuable (such as using what is known about how expertise is acquired and applying that knowledge to forming one's own learning program), and some which only some readers will find suits their ways of thinking (like the emphasis on using a particular type of mind map to explore a problem). An example of where this books method's are personal and popular rather than science-based include the popular conception of left and right-brain thought processes. This book and many others attempt to connect their methods of thinking about problems with a variety of focused and holistic viewpoints with Roger Sperry's research on split-brained patients. Modern neuroscience and functional brain imaging techniques show that the way the brain engages with problem solving is a much more complex picture using a variety of whole brain and localized functions. For example see http://www.rense.com/general2/rb.htm and
linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1046202306003100. But like most readers I am mainly concerned with what valuable information and techniques I can learn to improve my personal and professional life. For that this book provides an extremely valuable collection of simple tricks and methods of learning and deciding. You will be glad you purchased it.

I've read a number of Andy Hunt's "Pragmatic" series books and respect his contributions to the programming world, but Pragmatic Thinking and Learning was an extremely disappointing and boring read.

The fault I think lies not with the material: I've read many of the largely mainstream books on creative thinking Hunt references. Many of them, like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, are classics that are fun and absorbing in a way that's completely absent from Hunt's exposition here. If you're interested in the ideas presented in this book (i.e Right/Left mode thinking, Learning Styles, Time/Problem management, etc), the best recommendation I can give is to seek out the original titles themselves.

The problem with Pragmatic Thinking and Learning is the writing itself: colorless, detached, overly passive, and reeking of the kind of consultant-speak I believe is largely responsible for keeping too many people ostrich-like in their own code rather than questioning established methods and searching for innovative solutions to problems - often to their own professional disadvantage.

It's a shame because the ideas in Pragmatic Thinking and Learning are important - and not just for IT workers. But Hunt is not the right author - or at least the right solo author. He should have teamed up with someone who can write in a way that doesn't sound like every corporate PP presentation and workshop I've ever squirmed and nodded through.

Perhaps I'm not the right audience for Pragmatic Thinking and Learning. Twenty years ago it was more common to meet programmers who were musicians, artists or hard scientists who got in "through the back door". Maybe they (we) couldn't quote every algorithm in Knuth or write a compiler (how many people on the planet make a living writing compilers?). I'm sure a lot of us were making it up as we went along but I believe we brought something different to the IT table that in my opinion a lot of today's computer science grads lack. Ironically, I think Hunt might share my opinion on this; I just wish he'd made his argument more effectively.

I'm submerged in this kind of writing daily to make a living; the last thing on earth I want to do is read this stuff for pleasure or enlightenment. Unfortunately Hunt violates one of his own premises: for effective learning to take place there should be some element of fun.

I saw two big problems this book has:

1. Absolutely nothing is covered in depth.

2. Everything is given equal weight regardless of the source. A theory on some random guy's blog? It's assumed to be just as authoritative as a peer-reviewed journal. And in fact there are more tips based on the random blog than on the actual science.

There are some gems in this book, some interesting concepts and methods that deserve more than the passing reference they're given. I'm giving it three stars for those pearls, but my actual rating would be more like "most of the book, one star; a few parts, four or five stars".

This is a nice survey of current thing on improving thinking and managing one's brain resources. It is a cursory survey of many different techniques that focus on using the right side of the brain to improve our work. It is written to software engineers and uses a few too many of our metaphors. I liked it, but I didn't find anything I hadn't seen before. Good thing its a quick read.

I aspire to be a programmer. Not just an advanced novice of C++ programming, or a novice Java programmer, but a programmer. But right now, I am lacking. Yes, I've picked up on the trendy UML, the overused object oriented programming, and the quirky design patterns. Yes, I've picked up on the 'inefficient' C++ standard library, the flexible function pointers, the annoying differences between compiler interpretations of how C++ should be, etc. I've got all that. So what? Even with all that, it still took me forever to program applications with 3rd party libraries like QT, Ultimate++, wxWidgets, and Ogre3D -- forever would be something like taking over 100 hours implementing a standard interface for an 3D RPG game.

By some odd chance, I discovered this book while looking up on more efficient ways to program in Java.

Right now, I'm blown away by this book -- it has covered much of what my life experience has shown me and more. Ever since I was 12 -- maybe 13 -- I have been picking up and abandoning odd hobbies like TI-83 BASIC programming, web mastering with HTML, ocarina crafter, paper media designer, strength training, 3D animation, etc. Pursing these things were at first random -- for the most part I took up whatever seemed interesting at the time. Eventually however I found myself relating one field to another every time I encountered something new or unexpected. For the time being, my potential was at its peak -- my intuition jumped out and successes eventually replaced failure.

Once I was about 15 or so -- pardon the details, I was introduced to philosophy, formal logic, and formal methodology. All these made me believe that I had to be consistent and stick to rules. I was excited. I could try out a new way of thinking in order to cut the time I spent for school and expand my free time! At the time, I was confused why all my grades in school went down -- I never studied more than an hour for any particular day since insights just came to me during readings. What exactly went wrong?

So... why is this rather mundane life story relevant to the review? I ll tell you. This book addresses points I brought up through my story. In the introduction, the book addresses the first paragraph: Learning the rules, taking in the context, and breaking 'tradition'. Near the end of this intro the author mentions that experts suck when you force rules down their throat -- I had only realized this last year after I stopped trying to think during jiu-jitsu training.

To tell you the truth, the intro shocked me. A month ago, I wrote an essay for a college application that addressed a very similar topic -- intuition as an abstract concept and how one might go around to using it more effectively. It took me so long for these pretty trivial realizations that I was at first mad. How could the author sum up context, faulty conceptions, and intuition so nicely in just the first 50 pages? I had to discover these very things by myself with no outside source -- be it man, machine, or paper -- and the end result was still too abstract to be used in many contexts.

Despite the initial reaction, I was actually pretty happy inside. Finally I could discover a way to turn further my world of thinking upside down -- or sideways. Those pages that followed the introduction contained the meat of the book: pragmatism.

As you can see in the product description and in the book preview, the table of contents lists in order the following chapters: "Journey From Novice to Expert", "This is Your Brain", "Get in Your Right Mind", "Debug Your Mind", etc. All these phrases sounded pretty suspect -- gimmicky rang in my head. They reminded me of those self-help books that droned on and on about untapping potential, unleashing the so called unused 90% of the brain, and all of that excess verbiage. Hmm... journey... from novice to expert? Debug... your mind? You've got to be joking me.

Reading these chapters gave me the opposite impression. Three words -- maybe five depending on context -- popped into my head: Articulate, insightful, practical. The words in those chapters did not drone on, state merely the obvious, or theorized on a 3-step process to success; they imparted wisdom and gave me food for thought -- instead of saying "for this, you should probably do this", the author gives interesting pointers like "program into a language rather than within a particular language" and "a random approach... tends to give random results".

Countless analogies gave much clarity to things that I would have otherwise attempted to drill into my head. In a particular paragraph, the author parallels the shift from the horse to the buggy with procedural programming to object oriented programming -- in both cases they both have a common characteristic (getting to places and achieving tasks) but each has their own specialties that one would have to get used to. Unlearning, he notes, is just as important as learning. In order to do that, he suggests that instead of trying to find similarities, try to discover differences. For example, instead of applying the same techniques to two different programming languages, try a variation. A generalization would be applying a square to a sequence of integers: for C++, you might want to try std::transform on an int std::array or boost::array for compactness & speed while for Java you might just want to use the For loop on an ArrayList for clarity -- the use of C++ in this context might be proper if performance is desired and the use of Java in the context of rapid development would make its use in this instance appropriate.

Constant warnings made me aware about what might not work when I think of things in a particular way -- instructional books tend to make certain words and phrases vague, so the novice often has to guess what he should try doing at first and subsequently ends up being stuck as a novice of novices. In my case, I had a habit of strictly using tools and methods; before reading this book, I would have probably gawked at the use of object oriented programming in databases -- databases I thought had to be strictly procedural/relational.

I doubt the book will be the same for everyone. Heck, some people will probably read from front to back and declare, "That's it?" Some might even state, "That's totally wrong. This is how it is." Others may say, "You're just wasting your time, money, and energy reading these kind of books hoping to learn something new when you could just practice programming." In any case, I believe that at the very least this consideration should be taken: this is a book that transcends programming -- the pages within are very much applicable to other walks of life. Not just power to programming, but also power to you.

In this book, Andy Hunt explains many of the things you may have noticed about how you think, but didn't understand why. Then he helps you to extend that understanding so that you can think and learn /intentionally/! I've already shared the book with several educator friends of mine and they find the ideas presented very interesting.

One of the things I really liked about the book is that it is a well researched survey of the literature, with excellent foot notes. Andy then takes the body of research and applies it to the profession of programming, both predicting the consequence of the principles and addressing the resulting needs.

One key tidbit from the book: If you want to help a beginner to do something, tell them the rules. If you want to destroy the performance of an expert, force them to follow the rules! The great value in an expert is that they can reach valid conclusions directly, but may not be able to articulate exactly how they arrived at the conclusion. This principle has so many applications in life and society it is mind boggling!

Anyway, if you are a Thinker and you like to understand the why and how of things, you will enjoy this book!

It's my opinion that problem solving and the ability to rapidly learn new things are the two most important skills in our industry. Andy's book helps you boost your learning ability by walking you through some fundamental aspects of how one learns. He uses a lot of practical examples drawn from various studies on the psychology and background of learning, and does a great job of linking findings in domains such as nursing to our own IT domain.

It would be easy to dive so deeply into complex, dry topics like the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, brain modes, etc., but Andy does a great job of keeping an appropriate level of writing. He also fills the book with small, practical tips to help out - simple things like keeping a notepad or PDA around all the time to capture fleeting ideas in order to flesh them out later.

I also love how he highlights things that don't work, like his example of "sheep dip" training where technologists are lined up and thrown through an intensive multi-day training course which has little or no direct applicability to their environment. The training, like the parasite-killing goop sheep are dipped in, quickly wears off and has to be re-applied.

The book's tone is clear, enjoyable, and concise. The book's content is invaluable and mind-changing. I highly recommend you grab a copy and read it!

I enjoying learning and thinking, they are some of the activities that lead me into software development in the first place. I was very interested to find this book on two of my favorite subjects and gave it a try.

Not all of the ideas are new. I do a few things that are mentioned and have done some others in the past. The real value to me was the new idea juxtaposed with the things I'm familiar with and a better overall perspective of the thinking and learning process.

Some of the more interesting bits, to me, were how to engage more of the non logical parts of my brain in my thinking, debugging the mind, the use of the Dreyfus Model of skills, the use of mind maps and some of the general organizational tools.

I encourage everyone in the software industry to pick the book up and give it a try. There is one small problem with the book, if you could call it that. Following the principle of writing what you know about, the book includes many examples geared enough towards software engineering that I'm can't recommend my parents should buy a copy. Though, I might loan them mine for a little while and see if my work will buy me another copy.

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning is a hard book to read; Please let me explain. You'll bring a copy home, and you'll read a chapter or two. You'll extoll some of the cool outside-of-computer-science references, research, and applications that you've learned in those first chapters. Family members, co-workers, and friends that are around you or visiting will say, "oh, sounds interesting, can I borrow that for a few days." Being the nice person that you are, you'll say "yes" and loan them the book. It will come back in about 2 weeks. You'll really want to read past chapter 3, but a visiting family member will pick it up and take it for 2 weeks. You'll really want to get past chapter 4, but now your boss is reading it. This pattern continues for much longer than you'd like. The solution there is just to buy as many copies as you can reasonably expense.

The book shares many nuances to things you might have already known about learning, but couldn't quite put words to. I'm a big fan of Mind Maps. This just reinforces my addiction. This book also is a parallel to Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds and Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte: Paper, doodles, scribbles, and lo-fidelity mediums are a means to stimulate and bolster more regions of our brains and project information better to our audiences (for those of you that teach, in any capacity).

Other parts of the book are again, well written references for things we "feel", but now have Andy's words to point at. These include the operational differences between junior, mature, and advanced practitioners in a given field. It also includes how pressure kills your ability to perform your best. And lastly, the book has an overarching theme of how establishing learning time, work time, and play time can be a key to higher level performances and achievement.

This will be the most unusual book you'll read in the computer science genre, but the one that changes more aspects of your life for the positive than any other. And remember, buy additional copies, or you'll never get past chapter four in 2009.

I am on my second read of Hunt's excellent "Pragmatic Thinking & Learning". This one of those books you keep close at hand, I will probably keep it right along side of my "active programming library".

I especially enjoyed the section on "Deliberate Learning". I personally tend to read books from beginning to end, and Hunt suggests more "active" engagement while reading, something I know I need to do, but Hunt actually solidifies what you should do.

That's not to say this is one of those "XX Steps To Being The Next Einstein" sort of books, it's a book of "suggested" guidelines & tips, and it's communicated in a engaging & personable manner.

I am actually going to use Hunt's suggestions I gleaned from Read #1 in Read #2 of this excellent book. Highly Recommended.

I read this book from cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing.

Without a doubt our brain is the most complex, intriguing and powerful "tool" we have at our disposal. This book has the goal of helping it's readers make better use of that tool by leveraging it's strengths and supporting it's weaknesses. I'm not going to go into detail discussing the content, just read it yourself! I will say that, in my opinion, this book delivered on what it set out to do.

At 250 pages I felt the material was covered well, without getting lost in excessive detail or losing momentum.

While reading the book was fun, I am really looking forward to putting these ideas into practice. Really, you should read this.

Really enjoyed the book, Andy's insight and research really hit home for me. After reading it "consider the context" has become my mantra, knowing the Dreyfus Model has given me good insight into the different stages of learning and I've even bought some fresh colour pencils to start Mind Mapping. The book is chocful of practical examples that are fun and sometimes down right amazing... especially the shutting down of your L-mode and drawing that upside down man with your R-mode! This book really does give you all the tools you'll need to learn faster and explains things in fine detail to give you the big picture. Andy also has a good sense of humor so It's not a boring book about the mind, It's an action packed brain sharpener that every programmer, teacher and researcher should read this weekend.

"Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware" is a book about thinking and learning. Andy Hunt, the author, elegantly and logically builds a story about how the human brain thinks and learns.

This book offers a great deal more than a common "how to" book in that Hunt provides a great deal of context associated with the topics that he covers. With many direct references to other books and material, I found myself noting a lot of the books that Hunt references as books for future reading.

Anyone with a desire to maximize the manner in which they think and learn, or a desire to understand these processes better, stands to benefit from this book. Highly recommended due to its real-world uses and implications, combined with its rich and interesting historical content.

The ability to learn may be the most important element of success. It's what separates getting ahead from just getting by. I'm myself a software engineer and left purchasing any tech books. As technology out dates very fast, I need a way to find how to grasp any new materials quickly.

Andy Hunt takes to a journey from apprentice to expert. He starts by model per skill : the Dreyfus model. At the bottom (level 1), a novice needs guidelines for the task. At the top of chain, the experts (level 5) relies on intuition. These are the folks who write articles and look for better methods. The expert is very good at targeted, focused pattern matching. Everything is in the context. Sadly most folks never go beyond competent (level 3), they can troubleshoot and mentor novices. To be expert,there is a certain area of your brain work.

A bit of neuroscience, Andy explains the cognitive behind our brain. Our L-mode (left hemisphere or linear) processes verbal (use words to name) & logic, it's very analytical and needs details.
Our R-mode (Right hemisphere or Rich) is non-verbal (love images), synthetic and it's very good at analogy and pattern-matching.Some of the tasks of R-mode includes drawing and face recognition. It likes to see the how things relate to other things and how parts go together to form a whole. That's also where intuition is.
Below, you see clearly that knowledge workers are not familiar with R-mode cognitions.

L-mode - - - - - - - - - - - - - - R-mode
verbal - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - nonverbal
abstract - - - - - - - - - - - - - -concrete
temporal - - - - - - - - - - - - - spatial
analytic - - - - - - - - - - - - - -synthetic
local - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - global
white collar - - - - - - - - - - - artist

By an analogy if you follow the series "Heroes", Sylar and Peter Petrelli operate on very different learning ability. Sylar is mainly L-mode type, very analytical and in literal sense he performs on himself a brain surgery. His main ability is "intuitive aptitude", Sylar deduces the context of what's relevant in the brain in order to take others abilities. He knows he's an expert and somehow he closes his mind on possibilities.
Peter is the R-mode type, he can re channel an ability by remembering how the person makes him feel (inside the context of the person). He is an empath and unconsciously relates to the emotions of others. Unfortunately for him, for an R-mode type, he doesn't have much intuition. Later Claude lectures Peter how to master his empathy by formalizing his knowledge.

In order to progress in a skill, you have to be balanced in both mode. Remember Peter becomes expert, only when he can explain with words how to use his own ability. However you can't have both mode work at the same time. That's where this book takes you, practical exercises how to engage a flow with R-mode to L-mode, how to manage focus, how to shut the little voice in your head ...

How this book changed my life? Now whenever possible, I use a mind-map before writing any essays or just make a plan. Drawing a mind-map on paper is better that using any software, colors highlight better. I immediately see the relationship between things. I haven't put in practices many of the techniques described (SMART, SQ3R, morning pages technique...), even only a handful can drastically improve one's productivity. I should take yoga course as a new year resolution. Next action for me will be the morning pages.

Reading is not enough, and this books only pays off when you put into practice the "next actions". With the bibliography published at the end, it's obvious Mr Hunt has done extensive research on the subject. This is invaluable, that will remain true even in 10 years. Whether or not, you're in software industry or knowledge worker, this book is for you.
One reader suggested that a man's prime is between 18-25, I'm glad I had this book before I turned 25 years young.

Raymond Chenon

As with the original book under Hunt's name, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, this book offers well-referenced, high level advice without devolving into the preachy behavior of a self-help novella.

The book bills itself as "DIY Brain Surgery," and offers methods that actually work in practice, through this reviewer's own experiences. In addition, this book forms a large body of theory and makes a great deal of references to brain behavior in programming terms. These references may resonate with the owners of the original Pragmatic Programmer, but may put off others.


However, one need not be a programmer to make use of the practices and information found in this book. Holding the DIY elements completely aside, the material found in this book is well referenced and offers a significant amount of psychological theory for any trade dealing with people and their behavior. The black swan,* of course, is optional.

* See references in this book to The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Clearly, direct and with a lot of annotations and sidebars for help readers. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning show you different ways to understand and use our mind, every day and every moment. For any person from computer programmers to knowledge workers this book will be equally amazing and invaluable!.

A good book to get you thinking about thinking. A lot of the techniques in here I've discovered myself doing from time to time without understanding their importance or potential impact. I need to make it a point to read section 9.3 (the very last section) on a regular basis (every month or two) to warn myself of the dangers of complacency, close-mindedness, and the "professional kiss of death"; allowing myself to believe that my working set of knowledge is somehow complete and always will be. Not true now, not true ever. Hopefully I continue to think that way. This book, and the techniques found within, will be a great way for me to tune my mind for continued learning. I'm starting tomorrow.

I thought this book was an excellent read. I'm right at the point in my programming career where I need to start learning more efficiently, and this book gave me some great tools to start doing that. It's a quick read. I read it over several lunch hours at my desk. Make sure you do the exercises in the book, though. It's meant to be an interactive experience, not a spectator read.

Andy covers a wide range of topics related to the way we learn and how we can learn more effectively. The theoretical stuff ranges from interesting to amazing, but the real benefit of the book is the practical advice that can help us to learn more in less time and to make better of use of what we learn. With the outrageous pace of new information coming at us, it is more important than ever to be able to learn quickly. And with the increasingly complex problems we are called upon to solve, the ability to use what we know in new and creative ways is also becoming a critical skill. This book is a big help in both of these areas.

I recommend reading through the book once because it's an interesting and fun read. Then once again more slowly to take in and adopt the practices described.

Andy Hunt hit the mark for me with this book. I am a knowledge worker whose work life has most of the challenges that are described in "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning". Information overload, rapid learning, constant change and seemingly endless organizational shifting all mean that my wetware is in a fluid need of refactoring.

Can't stay focused? Try some simultaneous sensory input. Experiencing too many distractions? Organize your thinking with context in mind. Need to convey a task description to someone really well? Find out where they are on the novice to expert spectrum.

These are but a few of the areas that are treated. On top of that, practical "Next Actions" are offered to get the reader up and making improvements right away.

All in all, the book is very insightful, well explained and readable.

Andy Hunt's Pragmatic Thinking and Learning is fun and interesting, but the topics within often leaned on the obvious. The central theme throughout Pragmatic Thinking and Learning revolves around harnessing brain modes (linear mode and rich mode), self improvement, and the Dreyfus Model - a model, where our skills are ranked by five stages (Novice, Advanced Beginner, Competent, Proficient, and Expert). Throughout the text Andy works through the stages of the Dreyfus Model within the context of the software realm. He offers advice on how we can progress as developers, and discusses learning techniques that have worked for him. Andy offers many interesting tips, stories, and draws in external research. For example: Did you know, that research suggests that: "if you constantly interrupt your task to check email or respond to an IM text message, your effective IQ drops by ten points" or "the leading predictor of a tendency for road rage was the amount of personalization on a vehicle"?

However, I felt that many of the concepts discussed have become common knowledge (part of popular developer culture) and were somewhat obvious. To borrow from the Dreyfus Model; this book is probably best suited for Novices or Advanced Beginner. It's also fair to mention that I thought Andy's other book The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master suffered this same problem, but also keep in mind that "the obvious ... is never seen until someone expresses it simply" (Kahlil Gibran). In the end, I do recommend this book. It's a fun read, excellent for those who are new to the software industry. It would make a great addition to College / University programs.

This book is great. It is a thought provoking blue-print for preparation/education of a persons intellect, necessary to operate on a higher level.
It's very practical, yet funny. I couldn't put it down. Highly Recommended!

Do you want to improve numerous facets of your life?

Look, you know that (a) Pragmatic Bookshelf in general, and Andy Hunt in particular, put out good books, and (b) you're a mess.

So if you wanna change - buy the book. It really is that simple.

Andy Hunt is a great writer. By giving us understanding on how our brain is functionning, he is allowing us to use more of its potential. A must have to any knowledge worker in this age of information. Using the full potential of our main tool, I mean our brain, is the only way to keep up with this fast moving world where technologies appear and dies in matters of months.
Emmanuel

This is a fantastically useful book. I'm reading it by opening it at random pages whenever I have a chance. It's great for sparking ideas.

I experienced several "Ah-ha!" moments reading this book. It explained behaviors and patterns I had observed in myself and in others. Andy Hunt draws on a great deal of research for this book. My company recently sponsored an Agile conference and Andy was one of the presenters, on this book's very topic.
I highly recommend this book, and it's not just for technical folks.

Hunt states in the introduction that the goal of his text is to "help guide you through accelerated and enhanced learning and more pragmatic thinking", and that he is "a programmer, so my examples and rants will be directed at the world of software development. If you're not a programmer, don't worry; programming really has little to do with writing software in arcane, cryptic languages (although we have a curious attachment to that habit). Programming is all about problem solving". Later, Hunt writes that "whether you're a programmer or frustrated user, you may have already suspected that software development must be the most difficult endeavor ever envisioned and practiced by humans", but that "we tend to make programming much harder on ourselves than we need", and "the good news is that we can fix that right here and right now. This book will help show you how". While this reviewer agrees with the statements by the author on the non-trivial nature of software development, and thinks that this text contains interesting material, especially in the first half, this book does not show how to improve one's software development endeavors in any meaningful way. This reviewer completely disagrees however with some of the other reviewers here, who state that the author heavily depends on some of the older research on left- and right- brain thinking, or that he resorts to one-size-fits all methods for readers, because Hunt clearly states throughout the text that neither of these is true in his case (and this reviewer always reads entire texts before submitting reviews, so he can attest to this aspect of the book).

This reviewer enjoyed Hunt's discussion on the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition, which outlines five discrete stages through which one must pass on their journey: the novice, the advanced beginner, the competent, the proficient, and the expert. It is always interesting to read about this journey, and although many seem to choose five stages for models, somehow it makes sense to do so (this reviewer for example usually thinks of the career of a software professional as a series of progressive stages: coder, programmer, software developer, software engineer, and software architect). Hunt follows up this presentation writing that "by misunderstanding the Dreyfus model, we can rob them of their expertise. It's actually easy to derail an expert and ruin their performance. All you have to do is force them to follow the rules". The author continues by stating that "intuition is the tool of the expert in all fields, but organizations tend to discount it because they mistakenly feel that intuition 'isn't scientific' or 'isn't reasonable'. So, we tend to throw out the baby with the bathwater and don't listen to the experts to whom we pay so much. Conversely, we also tend to take novices and throw them in the deep end of the development pool - far over their heads." To sum up his points, Hunt states that "this is the progression from novice to expert, away from detached and absolute rules and into intuition and (remember systems thinking?) eventually part of the system itself". Very well said.

The chapter entitled "Get in Your Right Mind" was also well done. After a high-level discussion on the different modes of brain processing in the previous chapter, Hunt continues by investigating how these modes might apply to the reader. Contrary to some other reviewers here, this reviewer enjoyed some of the author's sidebars, including one named "Sh**ty First Drafts", in which Hunt shares a quote from author Anne Lamott: "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a sh**ty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it". And although much of the information in the chapter entitled "Learn Deliberately" might be found elsewhere (including from one's own experience), Hunt well presents information on why one's ability to learn might be the most important element of success, starting with what learning is and is not actually all about: "Many HR departments haven't figured this out yet, but in reality, it's less important to know Java, Ruby, .NET, or the iPhone SDK. There's always going to be a new technology or a new version of an existing technology to be learned. The technology itself isn't as important: it's the constant learning that counts". This reviewer especially appreciated the author's follow-up on this topic later in the chapter, where he states that "one major difference between knowledge investments and financial investments is that all knowledge investments have some value. Even if you never use a particular technology on the job, it will impact the way you think and solve problems".

Any book that claims to help you "refactor your wetware" and has a chapter on debugging your brain is a natural eye-catcher, right? Reading Andy Hunt's "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning" probably won't elevate your IQ twenty points or teach you tactile telekinesis, but it's a solid read, containing loads of information about how the human brain processes information, the nature of learning, and how you can take advantage of these things through helpful productivity hacks.

Don't let the shelving label suggested here fool you; this book really has more in common with self-improvement books than it does with programming texts. And like most self-improvement books it drags in places and tends to re-emphasize some of the same points over and over. But this really is a self-improvement and cognitive interest book created specifically for knowledge workers, and as such, it's particularly targeted at you and me. And that's A Good Thing, as many similar texts are much more focused on the theoretical underpinnings of the science rather than how we can immediately benefit.

Hunt starts off by examining the brain and learning processes through use of established indicators like the Dreyfus model and Meyers-Briggs (hey, I'm an INTP! Surprise). He also talks about what it means to be an "expert" in a particular subject -- noting that context is king -- and how intuition / instinct is the single largest factor in determining where you stand on the scale from novice to expert.

The next chunk of the book delves into the real meat of the subject, analyzing the differences between l- and r-mode processing and suggesting ways that you can "trick" your brain into using them collaboratively through certain games and tasks. Examples used range from keeping dream journals, to making frequent use of metaphors, brainteasers, rock climbing, and drawing exercises. Some of the most fascinating material in the book resides here, as you can actually try the suggested exercises for yourself and observe the results. And of course, this is all happily related back to how these same techniques work into programming best practices such as pair programming and refactoring.

The very nature of learning itself is examined next, and Hunt lashes out against corporate training and certification programs as ineffective ways to actually learn anything of long-lasting value. Instead, he posits, learning should be deliberate and continual. Surely this isn't a surprise to anyone who has taken the time to seek out this book in the first place or read this review. Learning by teaching and "learning by playing" are also stressed. Different learning biases are examined, and concepts like mind maps are introduced that can be helpful in organizing your thoughts. Personally I've never really seen a lot of value in "formal" mind mapping, but carrying around a simple unlined notebook and getting into the regular habit of scribbling down thoughts down is something everyone should try. Re-transcribing and expanding on those notes later provides even further value.

Managing Focus, the penultimate chapter of the book, is probably one of its strongest, and a good way to wrap things up with more immediately useful practical advice. Hunt describes tips for using meditation and purposeful defocusing (and non-goal-directed thinking) to increase overall awareness and take advantage of r-mode thinking. He also mentions, albeit briefly, the GTD philosophy, and discusses the benefits of using note-taking devices and Wikis to "increase exocortex storage". What good is encyclopedic knowledge of a programming language syntax, after all, when you can just use an external reference to easily look that information up? True knowledge is vastly different than mere memorization, and we should always farm out what we can to external sources.

Probably the most important point that Hunt raises here is the importance of context in our daily work. Focusing on a single task at a time with minimal interruptions raises productivity significantly. As humans, we are truly truly awful at multi-tasking (I can personally confirm this); instead of trying to juggle too many simultaneous tasks, we should instead just avoid it whenever possible. Context switches are costly -- Hunt reports that it often takes upwards of 20 minutes to "reload context the context stack" -- and the benefits of being constantly interrupted rarely outweigh the costs of the consequentual productivity losses. Hunt advises us to set aside certain safe times for phone calls, emails, and other bits of necessary communication (along with other tips for proper single task management), and that by doing so not only will our productivity increase but our stress levels will decrease accordingly.

I'd definitely recommend Pragmatic Thinking and Learning to fellow developers who are interested in pushing the limits of their personal productivity, or just to anyone who might be interested in the basics of human learning processes and cognitive science. It's certainly a bit weak in theory from an academic point of view, choosing rather to focus on immediately applicable productivity tips, but at 250 pages, it's a quick read and does a nice job of introducing the basics (which is more than most casual readers will most likely be interested in).

If you're interested enough to dig deeper into the theroetical underpinnings that make these productivity hacks work, the included biography is full of influential texts that will get you what you need. Just make sure to use the techniques presented in this book for reviewing them in order to maximize your reading experience and knowledge recall ;-).

I really enjoyed this book. Many of these kinds of books list techniques to try and help retain information or learn new information. The trouble is they don't include any support about why these techniques work or why they may or may not work for you. Pragmatic Thinking and Learning includes all of this and more.

The author has gathered ideas from a wide variety of sources and tied them together into a compelling work on metacognition. There is a good balance of deep ideas (e.g. the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition) and practical advice (e.g. carry a pen and paper). In a recent presentation, I started with a slide which was a copy of my mind map on the topic, and that certainly grabbed the audience's attention! I am an educator, and the book has made me think of new ways to qualitatively assess student learning and program outcomes. I found the recurrent theme of *deliberate activity* to be particularly useful.

I strongly recommend this book, especially to anyone who is serious about becoming a better learner.

Tell me something

* Have you ever felt that you have reached a plateau in your career ?
* Read the pragmatic programmer and couldn't get enough of it ? or wanted a follow up to it ?
* Felt stuck ? Reached a stalemate ?
* Had great many plans but never really completed them ?
* Knew there is something better but did not know how to reach it ?
* Wanted to get better, just did not know how to ?

Well I can with 100 % confidence tell you the answer to all these questions and more is reading the book `Pragmatic Thinking & Learning : Refactor your Wetware` -by Andy Hunt .

In this book Andy shows us

* Why the brain works as it does?
* How to move beyond beginner level performance to expertise ?
* What are our cognitive biases or bugs in our brain and how to overcome them?
* How to learn deliberately ? (learning that sticks).
* How to harvest your ideas and insight ?
* How to stay sharp and why is it important ?
* and so much more.

As I was reading the book I could already see changes in me and my performance (not that kind). I can honestly tell you this book has helped me.

Chapter 6, Learn Deliberately, begins with the quote, "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." To me, this quote captures the spirit of the book. The author reminds us what it means to be a student, and coaches us to stimulate our learning process, and remove the barriers which stunt creativity.

The book starts with a discussion of the Dreyfus models of skill acquisition: five levels of experience from novice to expert, and the skills needed to achieve the next level. Learning environments should match the skills of the student, and higher levels require the student to be able to assess their experience level and recognize gaps in their knowledge.

The chapters which follow explore different aspects of the learning process. There are common themes from educators, such as learning through play, and recognizing that mistakes are a necessary part of a learning process. Some topics (cultivating intuition, managing focus) are familiar from other fields (cognitive studies, yoga), but applied to the developer's perspective. And there are plenty of new concepts and perspectives to absorb, and practices to try.

The topics in the book are presented with an easy clarity not often found in technical books, and interspersed with wit, resources, and practical tips for incorporating the ideas into daily activities. I will recommend this book to coworkers and friends, and reference it during my own learning practices.

If you really value your mind, buy this book.

Most of the books I read tend to be more on the technical side, but after a friend recommended this one to me I gave it a shot. I think for the average software developer this book will have a greater impact than most any technical book they might choose over it. It has lead me into really interesting introspection on how I learn things and generally interact with the world. That includes how I approach problems, how I approach learning itself, and how I perceive other people. The insights you gain from this book will be paying dividends for years to come.

I was looking for some tips and ideas to help me think about and plan my projects better. I found the book to be full of great ideas and thoughts that were obviously backed with evidence and examples. My favorite might be the Morning Pages concept. I changed it to writing down thoughts before I go to bed at night, however, but it works pretty well.

Good job!

It expands your mind presenting, with good enough detail, various topics about how our brains learn and think.
One great thing is that it gives you a lot of practical exercises and techniques to put in practice what you've learned.

In my case it worth's all the time spent on reading the book!

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning is a well written book with many good tips that helps programmers and other knowledge workers with: concentration, brainstorming, retention and other things.

This book is a very broad collection of perspectives on being aware of how your brain works. It's actually along the lines of some of the behavioral economics books like "Predictably Irrational", "Logic of Life", "Fooled by Randomness", etc. It has pointed me in the direction of many other useful areas of study. I learned to draw about 100 times better than I could before- even if the theory behind it is a little hokey, it works. I particularly like the sections on logical fallacies and other thought patterns. The only minor problem with the book is that there is such a mixture of stuff in there, it doesn't really make a cover to cover reader. Still, there are so many worthwhile bits, there's probably something in there that you haven't seen before that you need to.

A well written, entertaining, guide to tools and techniques to help you be a better engineer. While many of the examples are geared towards software developers, anyone who wants to learn how to use their time (and energy) more effectively will benefit from reading this book. This book is a great mix of background material to help you understand how you learn, resources to enable you to learn more, and techniques to help you practice right away. This book will be one I refer to often, and is a great companion to Getting Things Done, and Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach.

the concepts are very clear ad concisely given.The book is also very well organized. you need not follow the normal start to end approach that we all have to read a book,but still the pages contain a lot of good information that is useful for any software developer to go with.
try this book for once , you will definitely help yourself good ... !!!

A very instructive and enlightening book on the ways we can change our thinking and learning skills. The brain is a wonderful organ.

I would say this is one of the books I enjoyed reading. The books starts with the Five Stages in the Dreyfus model and discussed about using the L - R modes of your brain and finally ends with Managing Focus at work. If read the right way the book gives you ideas to manage your professional life and also get things done easily. There are some links to nice stuff like Pocketmod, Mnemosyne, Personal Wiki etc. The best way to read this book is by note taking and mind map (which is also discussed in this book). Read a topic and if you have got some real life incident based on that topic, note down, reading this book that way was really interesting for me. Overall it is a very nice book.

This was easily one of the best books I've ever read. Andy did a great job of summing up some things I had previously thought internally (but never really gave any credit to), and presented just generally helpful tips and strategies throughout the chapters. I was a big fan of the side articles in each chapter, too.

I'd really recommend this book for anyone--though I doubt many non-programmers will buy it. It's just a genuinely uplifting and inspiring book, and I think Andy does a great job of pointing out tips and making suggestions that really can have a positive effect on the reader--both immediately and in the long-run.

A very inspiring and surprising book. Highly recommended for everyone who wish to improve himself and have no clue of where to start.

Sorry to report a broken book bought in Amazon but it was cut in half... I complained about a packaging problem but did not receive any answer.
The book is great but the service is bad