61 of 66 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Go read something else, April 10, 2010
This review is from: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)
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).
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66 of 72 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Understanding and improving how your mind works..., November 1, 2008
This review is from: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)
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".
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71 of 80 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not so useful, May 20, 2009
This review is from: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers) (Paperback)
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.
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