The Pragmatic Craftsman         :: Simplicity from complexity :: | About Me |

Ben Watson, whose blog I just came across, lists the following Top 5 Attributes...

1. Humility
2. Love of Learning
3. Detail-orientedness
4. Adaptability
5. Passion

I think this is a very good list. I think effective programmers are humble. Why? Because you have to be able to work well with others. Just from my experience, it's hard to work with people with a lot of ego.

You just have to love to learn. Effective programmers constantly improve. How do you improve? By finding new ways of doing the things you're used to... better. You have to be exposed to new ways in order to do that. Being able to adopt and having a passion for the profession are essential.

Reference
Philosophical Geek -> Top 5 Attributes of Highly Effective Programmers, Philosophical Geek blog

Test Driven
by Lasse Koskela
ISBN 1932394850
Date Read 12/2007

My Rating

One Minute Review
Positives
* Excellent coverage of Test Driven development
* Covers many development best practices
* Excellent writing style

Negatives
* Could be more concise

Summary
This is an excellent book on TDD -- I think it's the best book on the subject. At first, I thought this book is going to be just a review of the commonly known practices: test-code-refactor. Not true! In this book, I learned a lot more about this practice (of course), but also about how to do other types of testing (servlet, db, jsp, swing, and more), and also about the different tools available for the task. I really liked the author's open, direct style of writing. Makes it an interesting and a worthwhile read.