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Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

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Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#31

Post by sixhobbits »

swyx wrote: post #7
sixhobbits wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congratulations! Did you also consider leanpub?

thank you! yes in fact v0.1.x of the book was published thru leanpub. but i found their build process buggy and nondeterministic - the same exact source material would sometimes succeed in building and sometimes fail, with no stacktrace or helpful error message. The leanpub founders are aware of this, but to save my sanity after a 5 hour session randomly debugging from a distance i had to leave

Thanks for the insights! I've used leanpub a bit and have seen some bugs, but also found the owner really helpful in fixing these so I kept with them for now.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#33

Post by claudiulodro »

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?

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#34

Post by MivLives »

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'm also curious about this, and interested in a review from someone who has been in the field longer to see how much the advice here rings true. 40 dollars isn't a huge ask for a book, but it's above an impulse buy.

[edit] Rearranged some words for clarity

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#36

Post by quicklime »

> 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 people to belittle the work that software developers do. The exact wording varies, but the sentiment is basically that technical problems are easy, and can safely be outsourced to the lowest bidder, as long as there's a good Project Manager who can enforce the right methodology and processes. It's the problems that require "soft" skills that are difficult - these are the kind that Thought Leaders and Influencers work on - and we need to pay a premium for people who can solve these problems.

In reality, technical and non-technical problems are both difficult in their own ways, and both occupy a space that ranges from trivial to impossible.

In terms of career advice, I'd really suggest not perpetuating this myth. One of the tactics that the book lists is "marketing yourself", and repeating the idea that coding is easy (especially to non-technical people) undermines your career and that of your technical colleagues.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#37

Post by Swizec »

MivLives wrote: post #34
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'm also curious about this, and interested in a review from someone who has been in the field longer to see how much the advice here rings true. 40 dollars isn't a huge ask for a book, but it's above an impulse buy. [edit] Rearranged some words for clarity

Swyx is legit. The speed at which he established himself as an authority in the React/Javascript world is hella impressive

And he’s fresh enough that his advice isn’t enbittered and grizzled yet.

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#38

Post by acemarke »

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?

As a bystander but friend of Shawn's, I can say that over the last few years he has demonstrated an incredible ability to quickly learn and master concepts, then pass that information on to others.

I've seen him go from someone who didn't know anything about web dev at all, to a master of what's going on with React and its ecosystem. He's added expertise on Svelte and other tools as well.

Shawn excels at a lot of "big picture analysis" type thinking (which makes sense given his prior financial background), and I always find his comments and presentations insightful and highly informative.

I haven't yet had time to read through this new book due to my own tasks, but based on the blog posts I've seen him write leading up to this, and the preview material he's tweeted, I have full confidence that this book is going to be an excellent resource for other developers.

As for the price, Shawn's clearly put a lot of time and effort into writing this. If you have questions about his ability to do so and the likely quality, I'd encourage you to read through some of his blog posts to get a sense of how he writes:

https://www.swyx.io/writing/

Re: Show HN: Coding Career Handbook

#40

Post by [deleted] »

acemarke wrote: post #38
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?

As a bystander but friend of Shawn's, I can say that over the last few years he has demonstrated an incredible ability to quickly learn and master concepts, then pass that information on to others. I've seen him go from someone who didn't know anything about web dev at all, to a master of what's going on with React and its ecosystem. He's added expertise on Svelte and other tools as well. Shawn excels at a lot of "bi…

[deleted]
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