Published: 97 Things every programmer should know

Kevlin Henney’s “97 Things every programmer should know” (the website) project has now advanced from website to book. Yes, you can buy a physical copy of “97 Things every programmer should know” (the book) from all good, erh, online bookshops - I’m guessing it won’t be in your local Borders or Waterstones.



As I’ve mentioned before two of the 97 “things” are mine. Of which my favourite is “two wrongs make a right.”

What is scary is that I know many of the contributors - I mean, well enough to have drunk beer with at least of dozen of the, perhaps 30, contributors.

Many years ago I overheard a wise old programmer telling some recent graduates: “There are only 3,000 good programmers in the world... and they know each other.” OK, I can’t remember if it was 1,000, 2000, 5,000 or 8,000, I do remember it was thousands, not hundreds and not tens of thousands. I’ve no idea how accurate he was, but I’m more and more convinced of the second bit. The best guys do know each other.

And what 97 Things shows is: Kevlin knows more of them than I do which means he’s probably a better programmer than me.