Episode · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2026-07-15
Gergely Orosz & Dex Horthy: books mentioned on The Pragmatic Engineer
Context engineering with Dex Horthy
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Dex Horthy recommended Refactoring by Martin Fowler and others, Clean Code by Robert C. Martin, and The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and others, and discussed The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and others.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Goal
The Goal by Eliyahu M.
Discussed“And like usually when engineers say like, "Oh, we can't fix this. We have to rebuild it." The feedback is like, "No, just refactor in place. Just constantly keep the codebase getting better."”
Where to get it
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Refactoring
Refactoring by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, John Brant, William Opdyke, and Don Roberts is a foundational software engineering text that explores how to improve the design of existing code and make maintainability more manageable.
Recommended“Nowadays, we talk a lot about refactoring by Martin Fowler classic. I think it's because we spent a lot of time improving the design of existing code and trying to figure out how to get models to build code that is easy to maintain.”
Where to get it
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Clean Code
Clean Code by Robert C.
Recommended“We're reading a lot of like classics of software engineering. Refactoring clean code, the pragmatic programmer, like all that stuff is I think is more relevant now than it has ever been.”
Where to get it
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The Pragmatic Programmer
The Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas is a classic software engineering manual that outlines core philosophies, practical habits, and strategic methodologies for writing maintainable code.
Recommended“We're reading a lot of like classics of software engineering. Refactoring clean code, the pragmatic programmer, like all that stuff is I think is more relevant now than it has ever been.”
Where to get it
