Pragmatism in a Modern World
I am a pragmatic person. My life is guided by “the priority of action over doctrine [and] of experience over fixed principles”.
It’s why my go-to stack is Rails, JavaScript and PostgreSQL. Yes. I am boring. I’m ok with that.
Truth is, things change quickly, and pragmatism plays a crucial role in evaluating new ideas and methods to ensure a positive outcome.
The 20th Anniversary of The Pragmatic Programmer by Dave Thomas and Andrew Hunt opens up with the following characteristics that all pragmatic programmers have in common:
Early / Fast Adopter
Learn and adopt new technology quickly, not being afraid to fail often.
Inquisitive
Asking questions around the “how” and “why” to quickly figure out the purpose.
Critical Thinker
Evaluating what you’re doing when you’re doing it ensures you’re working on the right thing.
Realistic
Reflecting on the outcome to ensure mistakes are not repeated.
They also share two traits that are important:
Caring
Meaningful impact on your work starts with caring about your work.
Thinking
Positive outcomes are the result of constantly evaluating that you’re working on the right thing.
With these characteristics and traits, we can build upon more than just our preferred toolsets. We can build out truly scalable systems with the technology that works.
References
The Pragmatic Programmer, 20th Anniversary by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
Pragmatism | Philosophy, Encyclopedia Brittanica
Contributor’s Bio
Alvin is a Senior Software Engineer at Echobind. Husband. Father. Gamer.
