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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

#271

Post by Jtsummers »

gaws wrote: post #247
Jtsummers wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good book at a certain stage in your career. Before that it's too easy to misconstrue it as absolutist (it isn't) or misunderstand the guidance (like DRY, which got a major rewrite in the 2nd edition to help with that). Too late in your career and it is all "obvious" (if you're a competent programmer). On the other hand, as a mentor I found it useful to re-read it (or, read it through properly, I'd read large…

> It's a good book at a certain stage in your career. Such as?

Journeyman level, earlier if you have a mentor that can help you properly understand the contents (particularly, not to take parts of it as dogma).

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#272

Post by thecleaner »

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…

None of these books are very technical tbh. They usually describe principles in simple language (big plus IMO) so they could be consumed in a way you would read a novel.

As for having trouble reading difficuly texts try this - read two pages. Try to recall what you read. Then try to connect it with what you already know. You only need to do it for the fundamentals not every sentence and it will help build up flow.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#273

Post by kgeist »

JaggerJo wrote: post #248
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…

agree. I’ve inherited codebases from new “architects” who seemingly have just read GoF.

I've met such newly appointed architects myself - judging by the commit history, they were OK writing unmantainable spaghetti for 10 years, then they read a few books on patterns, got promoted to architects and started applying those patterns everywhere (ending up with unmaintainable overengineered abstractions). When arguing during architecture reviews, you'd often hear "but in book X it's written that..." like they don't have their own opinion. Fortunately, they all outgrew this phase and eventually became proper architects.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#274

Post by thecleaner »

exdsq wrote: post #49

The thing that changed my career as a software engineer, in terms of seniority & remuneration by time and effort, was by changing my efforts from learning arbitrary tech to learning the domain I worked in. Asking useful domain-related questions gets you noticed in stand ups and helps you write the right code. I work in fintech so the best bang for my buck I’ve had was reading an entry level cert in investment finance…

Take a bow. I was given this wisdom right on my first job and its the best advice I have ever received. Software is pretty useless without the business context so merely talking about software is not helpful.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#275

Post by nelc »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #204
headmelted wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun story I like to tell people about exactly this. A little over a decade ago I was working a gig at the software subsidiary of a fairly large non-tech multinational. It was a lot of mostly nice people and a mix of skills and experience as you’d expect. Anyway - there was a manager (M) on a project I was on who was.. unpleasant. They had quite an ego, and were very much the type to pass blame down the chain. Regardl…

Thanks for sharing that. It makes me angry; just hearing this, thirdhand, and a decade later. I was a manager at a company that paid “competitive” (i.e. “low”) salaries. A significant part of my job was identifying “diamonds in the rough,” and helping to train and nurture them; then, encourage them to stay. I feel that I did fairly well, here. When they finally shut down our team, the person with the least seniority…

As a young kid on one of those "competitive" jobs, I've always wondered about this. Do you genuinely encourage them to stay, or do you secretly wish them to move on to better work as well? Surely getting stuck there for a decade isn't the best thing for their career.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#276

Post by redisman »

JaggerJo wrote: post #248
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…

agree. I’ve inherited codebases from new “architects” who seemingly have just read GoF.

Haha I remember my first designs as a Jr Engineer after I had crammed the book into my brain before starting. I’m pretty sure the other devs just threw those classes into the trash when I wasn’t looking. For about a year I thought everything had to be a design pattern and making a vanilla class was a faux pas. 14 years later I don’t think I use any of the patterns anymore. Maybe facade if I’m refactoring a complete mess of a project

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#277

Post by redisman »

euske wrote: post #129

Maybe they are good books, but I found that most of these summaries are bland and generic, as in these phrases: "The book is strictly about career development and it has a lot of insights ..." "The book is filled with classic and fresh anecdotes, thoughtful examples, ..." "This book is amazing to understand the corporate structure and how you should behave ..." These generic praises aren't good enough to overcome my…

Show, don’t tell.

I really don’t get why this has 500+ updoots. What am I missing?

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#278

Post by redisman »

buzzwords wrote: post #131

Maybe this the best place to ask this. Unfortunately I've ended up supporting application and not actually coding so during interviews I can't get past technical parts. I feel very embarrassed by my lack of technical abilities. Anyone else had this issue? How did you rise above it?

Grind Leetcode

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#279

Post by brg »

Reading this list was interesting, and I feel compelled to share my own. Reading these books won't guarantee a great career. But on reflection, they did shape my world view.

* ANSI C, Ritchie and Kernighan. This was my first real programming book.

* Essential C++, Lippman. This book helped me move from C to C++, and I usually reread the series prior to interviews.

* Introduction to Algorithms, CLRS. I've read this cover to cover many times, and it motivated me to go to graduate school.

* Zero to One, Theil. This book made sense of the world of tech startups.

* The Innovators Dillema, Christensen. This book shaped my world view of how business should operate.

Re: Books that changed my career as a software engineer

#280

Post by alpb »

I can hardly believe the 37signals "Remote" book would've changed anything for anyone. I've read it almost a decade ago when it came out when I was early in my career and it definitely was practically a waste of time. In retrospect, it still is. I also can't tell from the blog post how it changed OP's career.
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