Pragmatic Thinking & Learning: Refactor Your Wetware
by Andy Hunt

Publisher: The Pragmatic Programmers
RRP: $34.95 (Available in PDF for $22)

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Review By Nicholas Ptacek

Summary

Pragmatic Thinking & Learning: Refactor Your Wetware is a unique book that explores a variety of theories on how the brain works; offering tips, tricks, and advice to take full advantage of ways to learn, solve problems, and ultimately find what lies beyond the realm of expertise.  Basically, this book will show you how to supercharge your brain!  Through a careful application of equal amounts theory and practical activities, Andy Hunt takes us on a tour of the inner workings of the mind, pointing out areas that can be fine-tuned to achieve a more efficient learning experience.  Although the book was written with agile software developers in mind, it remains fairly approachable for anyone with a basic grasp of programming concepts.  If you are looking for ways to become more effective at your job, accelerate and enhance your learning process, or simply want to learn more about the greatest computer of all — the brain, consider picking up a copy of this book.

Full Review

When Scotty said he was looking for a review of Pragmatic Thinking & Learning way back in September I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I had a passing familiarity with the topics presented in the book, having taken a smattering of psychology and philosophy courses back in college, and I was open to expanding my knowledge on the subject.  It turned out there was a lot for me to learn!  I’m quite sure that if, back in September, I would have had the skills I acquired from this book that I would have been able to stay on task and write this review in a more timely fashion.  As it is, I ended up brushing up on my existing knowledge regarding learning and picked up quite a few new tricks along the way.

The book is split into two different areas of focus, starting with how the brain works before moving on to explore ways to exploit, debug, and fine-tune the thinking and learning process.  This foundation of how the brain functions is critical to understanding the later topics in the book, and why the techniques presented work the way they do.  The book starts out  by exploring why the brain works the way it does, specifically with regards to gaining skill.  A thorough explanation of the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition shows the progression from novice to expert, which is a cornerstone for further chapters and topics.

The author continues to explore the brain in terms of computer metaphors, with the brain as dual-CPUs that take care of logical thought, language processing, searching, and pattern matching.  There is a focus on different modes of thinking, and ways to augment those modes to make up for the CPU deficiencies we all share.  Actions as simple as carrying around a pen and a notepad can have a profound effect on the thinking process, and can act as a seed to germinate a multitude of new ideas.  Along with some insight into the frailty of our memory, Andy describes other actions that can have an impact on our thinking patterns, such as cross-sensory feedback, and pair programming.  This underscores a main theme of the book, which is to look at projects from different angles; to go outside our normal boundaries and see new ways we can view a problem, which can lead to novel solutions.

Once past the discussion of how the brain works, Andy shows us ways we can debug our minds by identifying cognitive biases, “hardware” bugs, and personality tendencies.  By identifying these areas where we tend to unconsciously limit ourselves, we can start to avoid making the same mistakes that slow us down when working on projects or dealing with a particularly vexing problem.  Moving forward, Andy shows us how to learn deliberately and gain experience by utilizing various techniques, from setting realistic goals and deadlines, to finding success in failure.  The final section of the book gives tips on managing focus in order to increase attention, stay on task, and avoid distractions.

There were a few aspects of the book that I did not find appealing, the foremost of which was the PDF format.  The author makes heavy use of sidebars throughout the book, which were very jarring when reading the book in PDF format as they broke up the flow of the book.  I should note that on my screen it was easier on my eyes to display a single page at a time in Preview.app.  Obviously, this problem wouldn’t exist in a physical copy of the book, or with a larger display to show two pages side-by-side.  Although the majority of the theories and studies presented in the book were very interesting, they sometimes seemed overwhelming, as some chapters would ping-pong from one theory to the next, without stopping long enough for an in-depth exploration of a few choice theories.  Additionally, I found the first half of the book extremely hard to get into, even though it made sense in the context of the later chapters.

On the positive side of things, the PDF format actually came in handy when various sections referenced web links to further information, online tests, and studies — it was nice to just be able to click for instant access to a more in-depth background to the topic at hand.  The author writes in a very approachable style, successfully mixing in quotes and proverbs that apply perfectly to the topics, which made for an enjoyable reading experience.  I found that the book really started to pick up around the fifth chapter, when the author presented concrete actions to “refactor” your brain.  I found that I had already employed a fair number of the techniques presented in the book (such as the SQ3R method for studying books) without actually knowing what they were “officially” called — I had simply learned that these techniques “just worked” throughout the years, so I stuck with them.  It was refreshing to see further improvements I could make within my own techniques to optimize the gain in return from my brain.

Overall, I found Pragmatic Thinking & Learning to be a good broad overview of various theories on the brain, learning, and skill acquisition.  I think the book would have been more approachable by focusing on a smaller number of theories and studies, but it left me with plenty of new theories for me to explore on my own.  The tips and activities were varied and helpful, and I especially found the ones pertaining to focus, attention, and avoiding distraction to be critical in helping me finish writing this review.  If you are interested in a variety of theories about the mind and brain, and would like concrete tips and tricks to accompany you on your journey toward expertise, pick up a copy of this book!

About Nicholas Ptacek

Nicholas Ptacek spends his days programming (mostly in Cocoa), and is the founder of Sock Monkey Software (http://www.sockmonkeysoftware.com), which will soon launch its first iPhone application in the App Store.  Nicholas is the co-founder of CocoaBytes (http://www.cocoabytes.com) which is a repository for quick solutions to common Cocoa tasks.  You can find Nicholas on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nptacek