Episode · The Pragmatic Engineer · 2026-07-29
Gergely Orosz & Hillel Wayne: books mentioned on The Pragmatic Engineer
Formal methods with Hillel Wayne
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Hillel Wayne recommended The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman, Engineering a Safer World by Nancy G. Leveson, and Debugging by David Agans, and discussed Software Craftsmanship by Pete McBreen and The First Snap-fit Handbook by Paul R. Bonenberger. Gergely Orosz discussed Logic for Programmers by Hillel Wayne.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Software Craftsmanship
Discussed“You see books like software craftsmanship, which talk about how like, oh, engineering is this really boring, slow field, and software is this incredibly creative, special, wonderful thing.”
Where to get it
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The Design of Everyday Things
The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman is a classic text on cognitive ergonomics and user-centered design that explores why certain products are intuitive while others cause frustration.
Recommended“one of the engineers that I talked about two favorite books, The Design of Everyday Things, which he recommends every engineer read, and The Snap-Fit Handbook.”
Where to get it
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The First Snap-fit Handbook
Discussed“one of the engineers that I talked about two favorite books, The Design of Everyday Things, which he recommends every engineer read, and The Snap-Fit Handbook. ... And this was a 500-page book all about snap fits, their engineering, appropriate shapes, materials, etc.”
Where to get it
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Logic for Programmers
Discussed“In your book Logic for Programmers, you argue that formal logic is probably one of the most useful parts for for day-to-day engineering. Why why is this?”
Where to get it
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Engineering a Safer World
Engineering a Safer World by Nancy G.
Recommended“I'm going to just completely go 90° here and I'm recommend this book by um Nancy Leveson called Engineering a Safer World. Um she was an aeronautics engineer who investigated things like Therac-25 radiation case and like the Columbia disaster.”
Where to get it
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Debugging
Debugging by David Agans presents fundamental principles and real-world war stories to help practitioners systematically troubleshoot software failures.
Recommended“The last book is um called Debugging the Nine Simple Rules by David Agans. And it's literally just like a book of war stories about debugging and like basic principles. But this is the book that I give to every junior engineer”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“He's taught TLA+, a popular formal specification language across the industry, wrote the book Logic for Programmers, and will soon be joining Anthesis.”
“So, over here in this file that I wrote for my book, plug, I have a”