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Books that changed my career as a software engineer

julianogtz.github.io

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Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#181

Post by underdeserver »

banana_maker wrote: post #66
Osiris wrote: post #61

Is it just me or do other people struggle to read these kinds of very technical books? It's not that I don't comprehend, it's that my brain finds it boring and hard to focus. I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info, while throwing away most of the content, that I tend to do the same with books, which really doesn't work well. Has anyone found alternative ways to consume t…

Deep, focused reading is a muscle that you need to work on. There isn’t a real answer other than practice, and focus on delayed gratification. We skim websites/articles because there is so much information out there, and not all of it is useful. I skim articles and then go back to fully read them once I make sure they’re actually worth the time. Same with some books, but books generally are worth it since they went t…

I actually find the opposite.

Many books belabor the point and take a chapter to explain what a paragraph could.

It might sometimes be useful - for example, to explain a scenario to a newbie who can't relate from their own experience - but for someone who's been in the industry for a while, most of that information is just not useful.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#182

Post by lordnacho »

chaosite wrote: post #176
lordnacho wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those concentration drugs that you hear about, do they work? I've heard that a lot of students use them, but I'm a little bit wary of using something like that.

Why are you wary of using something like that? I use one of them, and it has been a great help for me for studying and for work. I don't take them during "off-time", i.e., weekends and holidays, and I don't feel like I need them for my hobbies, where part of what makes it fun for me is that I can take my time, shift my focus constantly, and define "progress" by my own internal metrics.

> Why are you wary of using something like that?

I don't know how to evaluate the risk, basically. Medical stuff tends to have a lot of noise.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#183

Post by lordnacho »

1ibsq wrote: post #177
lordnacho wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those concentration drugs that you hear about, do they work? I've heard that a lot of students use them, but I'm a little bit wary of using something like that.

They do. If you don't have a diagnose, be careful with it. You want to be able to execute challenging mental tasks without it. You will still be able to do that after trying such medication, but you will always know, there would be a easier way to do it and that can become a mental block.

Ok so how do I give this a try?

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#184

Post by lukakalua »

There seems to be a lot of criticism of the books mentioned in the blog and the comments. I am aware that expecting that some books are going to revolutionize a person's skills as an engineer is naive at best, but some people are even going as far as saying that following some principles/books can even be destructive. Ofc following anything dogmatically is dangerous, but is that the only concern? Just keep in mind that not everything can be applicable to every situation and we're good?

Genuine question, as a software engineer of 3-4 years professional experience, how should I approach furthering my skills? A lot of advice is just "do more, practice more, try things" and while that is going to be a significant part of it, I don't believe we should outright ignore books as a valuable source of info. How should I approach and identify books that contain "outdated" or sometimes "wrong" advice?

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#185

Post by pastage »

underdeserver wrote: post #181
banana_maker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep, focused reading is a muscle that you need to work on. There isn’t a real answer other than practice, and focus on delayed gratification. We skim websites/articles because there is so much information out there, and not all of it is useful. I skim articles and then go back to fully read them once I make sure they’re actually worth the time. Same with some books, but books generally are worth it since they went t…

I actually find the opposite. Many books belabor the point and take a chapter to explain what a paragraph could. It might sometimes be useful - for example, to explain a scenario to a newbie who can't relate from their own experience - but for someone who's been in the industry for a while, most of that information is just not useful.

Called US writing style over here, just being overly verbose. Course literature, e.g. Calculus, suffers from this. It is a style in which you wax on and drive home the point by repetition.

This style is popular nowdays and finding books that succintcly describes a subject is hard. This is mostly because you need to have common ground, and writing for the smallest common denominator is better.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#187

Post by [deleted] »

wiseowise wrote: post #155
Osiris wrote: post #61

Is it just me or do other people struggle to read these kinds of very technical books? It's not that I don't comprehend, it's that my brain finds it boring and hard to focus. I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info, while throwing away most of the content, that I tend to do the same with books, which really doesn't work well. Has anyone found alternative ways to consume t…

> I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info No, your brain just tricked you. It trained you into thinking that you're doing rapid research of useful info, while it just looks for path of least resistence.

[deleted]

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#188

Post by moffkalast »

dgellow wrote: post #139
Osiris wrote: post #61

Is it just me or do other people struggle to read these kinds of very technical books? It's not that I don't comprehend, it's that my brain finds it boring and hard to focus. I think I have trained my brain so much on rapid skimming of websites for useful info, while throwing away most of the content, that I tend to do the same with books, which really doesn't work well. Has anyone found alternative ways to consume t…

Have you tried audiobooks? It helps me a lot to do something boring, like cleaning the kitchen or emptying/filling the dishwasher, while I consume content. Somehow when my body is doing something in automated mode I can focus well on my thoughts or audio/video content. Audiobooks and podcasts are perfect for this, videos are a bit more difficult as you’re likely to miss something, and text content is not adapted at a…

Some people seems to find audiobooks and podcasts fantastic, but I think it's somewhat correlated with your multitasking capability. If I go on a walk listening to a podcast or have it on in the background while working on something else I absorb only like 5% of it because I can't focus on it. As such it's useless for me unless I literally lay back in bed and listen to it. At that point I might as well just read something.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#189

Post by _n_b_ »

underdeserver wrote: post #181
banana_maker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep, focused reading is a muscle that you need to work on. There isn’t a real answer other than practice, and focus on delayed gratification. We skim websites/articles because there is so much information out there, and not all of it is useful. I skim articles and then go back to fully read them once I make sure they’re actually worth the time. Same with some books, but books generally are worth it since they went t…

I actually find the opposite. Many books belabor the point and take a chapter to explain what a paragraph could. It might sometimes be useful - for example, to explain a scenario to a newbie who can't relate from their own experience - but for someone who's been in the industry for a while, most of that information is just not useful.

Relatedly, but I've always wished there were a series of books like, "I'm Already a Programmer but I'd Like to Learn ____"

Trying to pick up a book about a new programming language that is trying to explain the concept of an 'array' or whatever is annoying--I wish there was something to just lay out (still in a thoughtful and guided way) the concepts I needed to understand for that language based on already knowing several others.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#190

Post by janto »

sriku wrote: post #157
banana_maker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deep, focused reading is a muscle that you need to work on. There isn’t a real answer other than practice, and focus on delayed gratification. We skim websites/articles because there is so much information out there, and not all of it is useful. I skim articles and then go back to fully read them once I make sure they’re actually worth the time. Same with some books, but books generally are worth it since they went t…

This is right, however we also need to acknowledge the prevalence of books which put forth some good ideas, but which perhaps can be summarized in a page or so. Instead they choose to labor on and on around the same point(s) without adding much. A book that definitely wasn't in the category I described above (for me) was John Ousterhout's Philosophy of Software Design - https://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Software-Desi…

From the reviews it sounds mainly from the OO/Java and heavy design up front paradigm and not very Agile / test driven. Is that fair? I'd really like a philosophically minded book that integrates these relatively newer approaches.
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