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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

#261

Post by b3morales »

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…

Something to try is to accept the lack of focus, and when it happens, just switch to skimming. One of two things will happen: you'll realize the information isn't that important or interesting, or something will catch and you'll become re-engaged. In the first case, you can always revisit the material in the future, if you come across a situation where it seems like it might be useful.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#262

Post by chrsig »

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.

There's no evidence that they actually help people that don't have adhd. it'll just make them _feel_ like they're doing better, in spite of any objective measure.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#263

Post by chrsig »

lordnacho wrote: post #183
1ibsq wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

consult a doctor. they're probably controlled substances in your area, and people trying to get them illegally makes it all the more difficult for people that actually need them to live a healthy life.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#265

Post by chrsig »

throwaway1988-5 wrote: post #152
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…

Found out that I have ADHD. Never managed to read any books about programming, after a few pages my brain starts making up excuses to do other things and I start rereading the same paragraph over and over again. No issues doing the actual programming, could sit for hours on end without any issues. One nifty thing about my ADHD is that something that was super interesting can become dull as hell. For no apparent reaso…

I've had similar experiences in my dealings with ADHD. I've found resources like khan academy and 3b1b to be miraculous in helping me stay engaged. or atleast letting me rewind and watch multiple times.

w.r.t. books on programming - I've found that ones that offer a hands on project really aid in staying engaged with it. That's usually enough to give you a solid primer on a topic, where other literature starts to become a bit more accessible/less of a drag/less overwhelmed with unknown terminology

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#266

Post by chrsig »

loves_mangoes wrote: post #163
throwaway1988-5 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A little trick for technical articles that I've found is to use screen readers.

Screen readers work great, for me it's my phone. On my desktop I'd be getting distracted and bored in about two paragraphs. Even if I try to come back to the article, there's invariable 3 other things that I'm switching between. On my phone I've read 250k word books cover to cover, same books I could never read on a PC. Attention is weird like that. Another trick is getting your dopamine* externally. There's an assoc…

> Unfortunately, when people start needing a substance just to feel normal, that is the definition of an addiction.

Disagree. What is 'normal'?

A better definition for addiction is the brain no longer produces the neurotransmitter without the presence of the drug (or is doing so at a highly diminished rate). There's no evidence that such occurs with the amounts prescribed for adhd.

For that matter, people needing an external source of a substance to feel normal is unavoidably part of being an organism. We need water, or we wont feel normal. We need vitamins -- and plenty of people have vitamin deficiencies, are they addicted to said vitamins?

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#268

Post by yblu »

Copenjin wrote: post #206
educatedfool wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot second this enough. Uncle Bob et all have done imeasurable bad to a lot past and future devs generations. Advocating for a perverted cloudy way of overengineered sw that builds cvs and horrible enterprise sw. There are much better ppl to read out there. Anyone actually writing long lived sw. Linus, sam neal, anyone actually DOING it rather than living off self indulgent books.

I agree and hope that no one will come here commenting in favour of the uncle&co, what relevant software have they actually written? And how much time has been lost refactoring code from people that mindlessly followed their extremely simplified recommendations and toy examples? Let's forget them please.

> what relevant software have they actually written

I think Fitnesse [1] is quite relevant. That said, not a lot of FOSS work from someone like him, to put the things he preaches in large and complex projects that we can look at the source and learn from.

[1]: https://github.com/unclebob/fitnesse

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#269

Post by michaelcampbell »

dorinlazar wrote: post #76

I have a terrible problem with people recommending books that „changed their whatever”. And sometimes I think that it comes from an arrogant place where people being „influenced” by books is a bad place. But I do understand that sometimes books can change the way one thinks about things, and it makes sense to make a list of those. For me, there are books that had a negative impact on my work. The GoF book is one such…

> It's not only because it tries to codify coding as a sum of recipes

It doesn't do anything of the sort. It may try to codify some specific solutions to SOME specific types of problems, in a very narrow OOP'y context, but if "codifying coding as a sum or recipes" is what you took from it there's little wonder it has colored your view, so.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#270

Post by pm90 »

mjburgess wrote: post #227
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it also has a lot to do with whether or not you want good teams , or good individuals . The "Marine Bootcamp" methodology is hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, and is how we make good teams. Teams are how we make awesome stuff, but individuals are how we conceptualize awesome stuff. I've found that the best products come from hybrids of the two.

I think this is a really helpful remark. If you look at where this works, the team simply needs to execute -- largely not think creatively. I can see, then, why this is a comparatively rare form of organisation in programming teams. I wonder if there's room for it in programming training. Imagine being drilled to produce the same algorithm in a variety of languages over-and-over. Would this be useful? (I use to drill…

I don’t think there is value in humiliation. I feel like it will attract a certain kind of personality. Maybe you want that in a group of Marines who make life and death decisions. Most programming jobs luckily don’t involve those kinds of choices (the exceptions may be medical devices, manned rocket software etc).

Importantly you are discouraging a whole bunch of folks who might have much to contribute but have been chased away by the distasteful practices in the industry.

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