Ask HN: What influenced you the most in your Engineering Career?

#1

Post by aredirect » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 10:06 PM UTC

As a self-taught software engineer, I was heavily influenced by the following

- CS61a (Brian Harvey) followed by SICP course - Writings of Eric S. Raymond - CS61c (in progress) - Real World Haskell - Practical Common Lisp

These things have increased my impostor syndrome, but also were an eyeopener for so many wonderful things in this field. I'm curious what was it for you?

Re: Ask HN: What influenced you the most in your Engineering Career?

#2

Post by lordkrandel » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 10:27 PM UTC

Peopleware by Tim Lister and Tom De Marco. Software is mainly about people.

Re: Ask HN: What influenced you the most in your Engineering Career?

#3

Post by pavel_lishin » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 10:30 PM UTC

Probably a guy named René, who was the first person I worked with who actually seemed to give a shit about (a) the craft of software development, and (b) teaching a relatively new software engineer to care as well.

Re: Ask HN: What influenced you the most in your Engineering Career?

#4

Post by aredirect » Sun, Apr 21, 2024, 11:58 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #3

Probably a guy named René, who was the first person I worked with who actually seemed to give a shit about (a) the craft of software development, and (b) teaching a relatively new software engineer to care as well.

I hope I have the same effect on students doing internships where I work this year . I believe my René was Brian Harvey!

Re: Ask HN: What influenced you the most in your Engineering Career?

#5

Post by aredirect » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 12:00 AM UTC

lordkrandel wrote: post #2

Peopleware by Tim Lister and Tom De Marco. Software is mainly about people.

Thank you for the recommendation! definitely that's a dimension I need to checkout :)

Re: Ask HN: What influenced you the most in your Engineering Career?

#6

Post by syndicatedjelly » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 12:17 AM UTC

If we're talking engineering as a broad subject, I would say Design for Six Sigma. DFSS establishes the practical link between math and engineering, through the lens of industrial statistics. I greatly appreciated learning this link early in my career. It has helped immunize my technical acumen from being degraded by pseudo-scientific theories pervasive in the field of project management.

Re: Ask HN: What influenced you the most in your Engineering Career?

#7

Post by dredmorbius » Mon, Apr 22, 2024, 2:58 AM UTC

Economic cycles.