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Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

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Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#51

Post by canadev »

bluntfang wrote: post #41
quicklime wrote: post #36

> The Coding will always be the easiest part of a Coding Career I'm a little triggered by this headline. I understand what it means, and I agree there's some truth to it. It can be good advice when given to developers who haven't yet figured out that their job is not exclusively to write code. But in my company (which is a big non-tech corporate) I've noticed that a similar phrase often gets used by non-technical peo…

Coding isn't the hard part of your job, it's convincing people that outsourcing isn't going to result in good outcomes. The reason why they won't result in good outcomes: * maintenance is hard * writing quality code is hard * CI/CD is hard * requirements gathering is hard etc.

Sometimes coding is hard in and of itself.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#52

Post by stephc_int13 »

I am frankly a bit tired of this kind of bait-clicky lessons from people with a very thin track record. (This is way too frequent on Youtube these days)

I'd be more interested in the insight someone like Fabrice Bellard gained during his coding career, especially if we're talking about productivity or impact.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#54

Post by acemarke »

lukeholder wrote: post #45

It looks like a lot of friends with prepared comments for this launch in here.

I can confirm that my own comment above was 100% spontaneous.

That said, Shawn has been writing this book in public, so anyone who's been following him does know that he was about to launch.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#55

Post by PenguinCoder »

swyx wrote: post #8
forrestbrazeal wrote: post #6

Read a version of this book pre-release and loved it! Distills much of the best advice you can get if you hang out for a few years on HN into an easily shareable package. Would recommend as a graduation gift or career starter for the new tech person in your life. But also super valuable for folks who have been in the industry as well. The chapter on "Marketing Yourself" contains some reminders that I found really hel…

thanks a TON forrest! your advocacy and lending your platform to help give a leg up to others in our industry has been super inspiring to me and I hope to do the same in future!! edit: for those who don't know - forrest does a Cloud Resume Challenge where he helps people get started with a career in the cloud - laying out exact steps and offering his personal network to anyone* who completes them: https://forrestbraz…

There's a lot more than two conditions there, and turns me off trying. Even though, I could probably use the networking.

I mean, kudos to him certainly; who you know is more important than what you know to getting seen and heard. This is a great leg up for the right people.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#56

Post by catacombs »

foobar_ wrote: post #26

I highly recommend the channel Tech Lead, a youtuber who covers some of the mundane aspects of programming career.

Tech Lead is walking meme who rarely offers good advice, most of which should be taken with a grain of salt. His life is currently a mess: He's divorced and has been recently been accused of doxxing YouTubers and other people who criticize his work.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#57

Post by swyx »

claudiulodro wrote: post #33

Please don't take this the wrong way; I am genuinely curious. As far as I can tell, you've been a professional developer for approximately 2 years. What qualifies you to instruct people how to manage their dev career, let alone charge $40+ for the advice?

i think its a fair question and you've been very polite about it :)

I basically deal with it by being super open about it (it's pretty much the first thing anyone knows about me) and letting people decide if they still want to read me or not. enough do. in a free market, that's plenty.

so the question then becomes: what confidence do I have in what I think I know? it comes from 3 places:

- Empirical foundation: study and read others. this book has 1419 external links and quotes to advice from people way more credible and established than me. I provide curation and context.

- Theoretical foundation: I do my best to ensure what i see in real life is backed up by indisputable logical/psychological axioms. This is important for replicability.

- Personal Experience: I apply what I learn to myself.

Every weakness can be a strength (funny enough, i spend a whole chapter talking about this). In my case, i've basically made a career out of putting out what i learn as i learn it, before i'm an expert, with the responsible disclaimer that I am not an expert but I do put a ton of work into thinking and research. it's the opposite of "fake it til you make it", its being real that you havent made it yet but you do not let that stop you trying. I am at the exact point where my voice and perspective on things (being a recent beginner) let me explain things to beginners in ways that experts can't.

Yes it's uncomfortable af. But you see tremendous growth when you are both intellectually honest and doggedly persistent at this.

As I wrote this book I was also overcome with this personal insight - me 5 years from now would probably not pick this book to write. I would be interested in different things, different challenges. This is pretty much the only time I would ever write a junior-dev-to-senior-dev book: right after having done it.

I suspect this is why so few junior-dev-to-senior-dev books exist - people wait too long, and then by the time they feel qualified to write a book, they care more about management or architecture or what have you.

short answer: no i don't feel very qualified right now. i do intend to update this for a few years. how long until i am qualified? we shall see.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#58

Post by gautamdivgi »

bluntfang wrote: post #41
quicklime wrote: post #36

> The Coding will always be the easiest part of a Coding Career I'm a little triggered by this headline. I understand what it means, and I agree there's some truth to it. It can be good advice when given to developers who haven't yet figured out that their job is not exclusively to write code. But in my company (which is a big non-tech corporate) I've noticed that a similar phrase often gets used by non-technical peo…

Coding isn't the hard part of your job, it's convincing people that outsourcing isn't going to result in good outcomes. The reason why they won't result in good outcomes: * maintenance is hard * writing quality code is hard * CI/CD is hard * requirements gathering is hard etc.

How much success have you had? Not trying to be snarky - but the problem in corporates is there are no "lag indicators" of success. The success of a manager is defined as getting to a specific cost structure, there is no measure if that cost structure delivers the results. And in a lot of big corporations what's good for your career and what's good for the company may not be the same thing.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#59

Post by reroute1 »

acemarke wrote: post #54
lukeholder wrote: post #45

It looks like a lot of friends with prepared comments for this launch in here.

I can confirm that my own comment above was 100% spontaneous. That said, Shawn has been writing this book in public, so anyone who's been following him does know that he was about to launch.

Do yourself a favor and stop propping up his crap

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#60

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

quicklime wrote: post #36

> The Coding will always be the easiest part of a Coding Career I'm a little triggered by this headline. I understand what it means, and I agree there's some truth to it. It can be good advice when given to developers who haven't yet figured out that their job is not exclusively to write code. But in my company (which is a big non-tech corporate) I've noticed that a similar phrase often gets used by non-technical peo…

To be honest, the technical problems are the easy thing in most companies since they just need a simple CRUD app and anything you do will be magic to most people regardless.

The politics are the difficult part of most work in this industry. Everyone has an agenda (which is not a bad thing) and serving multiple agendas will make your technical problems even worse.

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