This book follows the same format as the original Programming Pearls (2nd Edition) (ACM Press), but the content is very different. Where Programming Pearls has a strong focus on performance and algorithms, this book is a mixed bag. It presents articles on practical things like profiling (pre-gprof), associative arrays, how to represent data in text (pre-XML), a collection of computer science quotes, the Pic language, creating graphs (pre-Excel)...
Compared to the timeless puzzles and mind expanders of Programming Pearls, the practical nature of these articles make them susceptible to aging. There is some interesting stuff - for example it was nice to get an introduction to the Pic language. But it's by no means an essential book. I don't regret getting it, but if I lost it, I wouldn't get a new copy.