[HN Gopher] Books that changed my career as a software engineer
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Books that changed my career as a software engineer
Author : julianogtz
Score : 536 points
Date : 2021-11-28 00:07 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (julianogtz.github.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (julianogtz.github.io)
| dorinlazar wrote:
| 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 book, and its impact on my development
| is so distructive I can't even begin to explain. It's not only
| because it tries to codify coding as a sum of recipes, but people
| reading it end up with the scary idea that there is _only one
| way_ of doing things, and that one way has a clear name, and a
| single possibility for implementation. The GoF buffs are those
| that keep stressing the most autoerotic interview question:
| ,,describe me one design pattern, other than Singleton".
|
| Now worse than people who read the GoF book are people who dove
| deeper into the issue and learned about _more_ design patterns
| from other books. One such people screwed my career development
| for 7 years because at one internal interview he asked me out of
| nothing about the ,,half sync half async pattern", that solves a
| problem that he wasn 't able to describe to me. And since I
| failed, I was forever on their s*t list.
|
| I think there are good books that can influence your life in a
| positive manner, but those are incremental changes, things that
| add a few things here and there. I would expect to see on lists
| that ,,changed careers" books on programming languages, like
| Kernighan & Ritchie on C, or Stroustrup's or Alexandrescu's books
| on C++. Or books on fundamentals, like Hennessy and Patterson,
| like Tannenbaum's Network or Operating systems, Knuth, or
| Cormen&al on Algorithms. But since I rarely do...
| educatedfool wrote:
| 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.
| Copenjin wrote:
| 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.
| yblu wrote:
| > 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
| craftinator wrote:
| > One such people screwed my career development for 7 years
| because at one internal interview he asked me out of nothing
| about the ,,half sync half async pattern", that solves a
| problem that he wasn't able to describe to me. And since I
| failed, I was forever on their s*t list.
|
| This is a sign, that in order to solve the problem, you must
| move on to a job that isn't the problem.
| dorinlazar wrote:
| I learned many things from that experience, but later, when I
| actually got smarter about career and interviews; being
| introverted didn't help much either. But I'm glad I didn't
| make this mistake on my end, when I was at the other end of
| the table; I was able to hire and help grow people who would
| have been put down because they didn't read a recipes book.
| nesarkvechnep wrote:
| Or SICP...
| misja111 wrote:
| > One such people screwed my career development for 7 years
|
| The problem was with this person, not so much with the GoF
| book. In present days this person might have become an FP
| fundamentalist and come up with some exotic category theory
| quiz question that he was very fond of himself. The GoF book is
| now of course outdated but the idea of categorizing best
| practices from the industry was a good one. Unfortunately many
| good ideas will be abused by people who lack the common sense
| to know how and where to apply them. A similar thing has
| happened to the agile software development movement, to
| microservices architecture (every service is a microservice?!),
| unit testing (people trying to reach 100% coverage).
| bear8642 wrote:
| >Or books on fundamentals...
|
| Abelson, Sussman's _Structure Interpretation of Computer
| Programs_ also good recommend - helps show that whilst it 's
| not magic, fact everything still works _is_ magical
| digianarchist wrote:
| This has sat on my shelf for my ten year career and I've
| never read it. Are there any up-to-date resources to help
| approach the text?
| nesarkvechnep wrote:
| Just install Dr. Racket and write #lang sicp at the top.
| What kind of resources to help you approach the text you're
| looking for?
| wyclif wrote:
| Incidentally, I just installed Racket today so I can work
| through SICP. I was kind of confused by the choices of
| what to run.
| sateesh wrote:
| That is the beauty of this book, there is no need for any
| extra resources. Install SICP package in Dr. Racket [1] and
| start reading the book. Try your best to solve the
| exercises, and don't give up easily on the exercises.
| Thinking over the exercises and solving them is the best
| way to assimilate learning from SICP. I read only the first
| 3 chapters, and relied on notes from Eli Bendersky [2] to
| check when stuck with exercises.
|
| 1. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19546115/which-lang-
| pack... 2.
| https://eli.thegreenplace.net/2007/06/19/introducing-the-
| sic...
| mavelikara wrote:
| The videos from a class the authors gave in 1986 are
| available online
| (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Op3QLzMgSY). I highly
| recommend those, if reading the text is not your style.
| tartoran wrote:
| This is a gem!!
| JaggerJo wrote:
| agree. I've inherited codebases from new "architects" who
| seemingly have just read GoF.
| rmk wrote:
| I think you are being unfair towards GoF. GoF came out when
| Object Orientation was the rage and it provided a useful
| compendium of solution archetypes that can be used in response
| to (solved, recurring) problems. That is not to cast aspersions
| on your personal experience. It sounds like you had an
| encounter with an Architecture Astronaut and ended up in a bad
| place, but the fact that you are writing about it is a good
| thing, isn't it?
|
| I also agree that "changed my x" is a bit of a stretch; perhaps
| it's hyperbole and should be taken as such. There are very few
| "things" that change one's life. Perhaps being in a war, or a
| natural disaster or some such, having an encounter with death
| but averting it or some such event could singlehandedly change
| one's life, but I doubt that reading a book or a set of books
| is one of them.
| dorinlazar wrote:
| It's not a judgment of GoF per se, although I have some
| critique on the book as well, but of the impact it had.
| Unfortunately, a lot of people (mis)took it to heart, and GoF
| became just another book to learn by rote when interviewing.
|
| Somehow related, Google right now _demands_ interviewees to
| prepare using the _Cracking the Coding Interview_ book.
| Pretty much it 's like someone sells you a door and hands you
| a set of lockpicking tools instead of you using the key to
| enter.
| iriss wrote:
| I actually really appreciate the GoF book. I don't use their
| patterns every day, but it's definitely driven home the message
| of carefully thinking about which parts of the system should
| depend on which other parts, and examples of how you can
| achieve that. I also find it useful as a reference because many
| of the more common patterns do show up in people's code and in
| libraries and understanding what a
| singleton/adapter/factory/builder is, does help me in my day to
| day.
|
| I think the problem are the people who can't abstract the
| message of the book and instead use it as their reference for
| absolutely everything, over-engineering the hell out of things.
| When I'm asked the sort of questions you describe, I also just
| ask if they could instead explain the problem, because being
| able to solve problems is all design patterns are about. If
| they can't, I would respectfully ask how their knowledge of the
| design pattern will then help them in their job.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| What the hell is GoF
| Jtsummers wrote:
| "Gang of Four". It's how the book * Design Patterns: Elements
| of Reusable Object-Oriented Software* is often referenced.
| The "four" being the four authors.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > 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.
| lukakalua wrote:
| 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?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| Understand that most of the books are born from experience. But
| they represent what that author(s) learned, which may or may
| not have been the right lesson in every case and, almost
| always, is not a true universal lesson.
|
| Some views have to be considered in context. If OO means
| Smalltalk to one author and C with Classes to another their
| statements on "OOP" will actually be about two different
| things, learn from them both but don't misapply the lessons
| from one to the other (happens a lot).
|
| With that in your head, read the books and question them.
| Experiment with their ideas where you can or run thought
| exercises, "What if...?"
|
| Also, read "The Psychology kf Computer Programming" by
| Weinberg. He presents many different case studies (though
| briefly) and commentary. One of the few books where it is clear
| his prescription is, "Study people and their behavior" not "Do
| what I say and you'll make perfect code."
| mjfl wrote:
| If they didn't allow you to start your own website/service or
| become independent then they did not change your career.
| smus wrote:
| What a narrow minded way of looking at things. You don't know
| other people's stories, or what their priorities are, or what
| situation they're in.
| mkl wrote:
| It's perfectly possible for your career to be changed without
| you bootstrapping your own project.
| rbobby wrote:
| There can be only one: The Elements of Programming Style
| abraxas wrote:
| There can be only one: Structure and Interpretation of Computer
| Programs
| montblanc wrote:
| Ruby Under a Microscope is the first and only technical book I
| will finish; if you like Ruby and are curious about how things
| work under the hood it's a joy to read. You need to look for
| something that actually interests you. Reading some bible on
| design patterns with hundreds of useless Java or C++ examples
| often IS boring. And let's be honest it probably won't make you a
| better software developer. A close second to me was Hacking: The
| Art of Exploitation by Jon Erikson. It's a great introduction to
| low level stuff and how basic hacks are formed. Really loved it
| though I admit I never finished it.
| montblanc wrote:
| Edit: I meant to say it's the first I have finished (which will
| happen soon). I'm not saying there aren't other worthy
| technical books out there I'm sure there's plenty.
| JavaBatman wrote:
| Is there a good book on object oriented programming for
| beginners? By beginners I mean people who code regularly but
| aren't software engineers.
| abraxas wrote:
| Depends on your language. But Effective Java is not a bad one
| if Java is the language you use.
| flor1s wrote:
| I think it's more important to find a good text book about the
| language you want to learn programming in, rather than a book
| about OOP. OOP is implemented differently by each language, and
| some popular languages these days completely avoid OOP.
| damontal wrote:
| As irritating as it is, the Head First book on OOP is actually
| decent for a novice.
| nomdep wrote:
| If your language is Ruby or Python I would recommend Practical
| Object Oriented Design by Sandi Metz
| pcmoney wrote:
| I agree but I wouldn't restrict the recommendation to just if
| you use python or ruby but if you want to use or understand
| any language in an OO fashion.
| unbanned wrote:
| There's an old adage: those who can do, those who can't teach.
|
| There's no magic information you're going to come across to
| further your career in any sort of literature on software
| development, or indeed any sort of career in general. Any
| practical books are verbose versions of framework documentation,
| coaching books are common sense, others formalising experiential
| learnings - which are only realised from having that experience
| itself.
|
| This makes sense; otherwise you could get any Joe Blogs to read a
| couple of books and become an expert immediately.
| orsenthil wrote:
| Mine will be none. Only practice, coding, building, testing,
| exercising again and again has helped me.
| montblanc wrote:
| Yeah this is probably correct. Still, on some rare occasions
| it's so hard to get into a topic that if there's a good book I
| would give it a try. For example: I'm interested in Ruby
| internals. The codebase is very very complicated and I have no
| background in interpreters; in that case Ruby Under a
| Microscope is a life safer. I would say the same if I was
| looking to get into Linux kernel development.
|
| But in general - if you are just trying to become a better
| software developer (e.g write clean, well tested code) you are
| absolutely right no book will get you there, hard work will.
| GlennS wrote:
| Have you considered trying books filled with structured
| exercises?
|
| I worked through The Little Lisper when I was at university and
| I got a lot out of it, for example.
| Osiris wrote:
| I think this is the kind of content I need. One that presents
| a problem and allows me to figure out a solution.
|
| Can you recommend any other content like that?
| zamfi wrote:
| projecteuler.net?
| GlennS wrote:
| Good question. I guess my answer is not really. I'm not
| sure why I haven't sought out more of this kind of thing.
|
| Still, a couple of random things I can think of:
|
| The Spatialite Cookbook is no longer maintained, but I
| think still useful. That's structured as a sequence of fun
| exercises: http://www.gaia-gis.it/gaia-sins/spatialite-
| cookbook/index.h...
|
| I also enjoyed Peter Norvig's Design of Computer Programs
| online course: https://www.udacity.com/course/design-of-
| computer-programs--...
| martincmartin wrote:
| I liked The Mythical Man-Month. What do people think of Fred
| Brooks' more recent book, The Design of Design (2010)?
| dvt wrote:
| I'm not sure how any of these books have anything to do with
| actual career advancement. Career trajectory improvements are
| generally catalyzed by high-risk business decisions (e.g. doing a
| startup, joining as an early employee, job hopping, etc.), or
| political posturing (e.g. getting promoted, gaming the stack
| ranking, aggressive negotiations, etc.). Being a good engineer
| doesn't really have anything to do with either. You have plenty
| of baseline engineers both starting companies and getting
| promoted over the studious "10x engineers."
|
| Take the 37signals Remote book, for example: as a run-of-the-mill
| engineer, you quite literally have no say in what the work/office
| culture of your employer is. Unless you're (at a bare minimum) a
| VP, no one cares what your opinion is, as you have zero political
| capital. I don't want to be too negative, so here are some books
| I would suggest: The 48 Laws of Power
| Outliers: The Story of Success The Black Swan: The Impact
| of the Highly Improbable How to Win Friends & Influence
| People
| sswaner wrote:
| I disagree. Reading the books mentioned by the OP are more
| geared towards being a better software engineer. Your list
| seems to be better aligned to improving the success of a
| software manager. As for Remote, I found the book useful for
| making the case for remote work, and how to succeed with remote
| workers in a corporate culture that was highly resistant to the
| ideas.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Being a good engineer doesn't really have anything to do with
| either.
|
| Being a good engineer is necessary, but not necessarily
| sufficient, for being promoted.
|
| There are some toxic workplaces where politics is the only way
| to get ahead, but they tend to fizzle out quickly as the upper
| ranks become filled with people who aren't good at anything but
| politicking and the good engineers and managers leave for
| greener pastures. It's certainly _not_ characteristic of a
| typical, successful company.
|
| In fact, neglecting engineering skills and trying to
| exclusively play political games is one of the quickest ways
| I've seen people tank their engineering careers. The problem is
| that it might work at first, for a short while, but eventually
| the people around the person realize they're all talk and no
| show.
|
| Reputations are hard to build but easy to destroy.
| evan_ wrote:
| > eventually the people around the person realize they're all
| talk and no show.
|
| That's when they pull up stakes and move to the next company.
| mgfist wrote:
| Being an engineer is just that - an engineer. It's different
| from being a leader. Being a "10x" engineer just makes you a
| better engineer, it doesn't mean you're any more capable of
| making a decision that would generate a company $100 million in
| yearly revenue. Just different skill set. Steve Jobs wasn't a
| great engineer, but he was a great product visionary and
| marketer.
| dvt wrote:
| > Being an engineer is just that - an engineer. It's
| different from being a leader.
|
| I disagree. In fact, the third or fourth stage of your
| promotion will often be a leadership position (junior,
| senior, principal/tech lead). If you're okay with being a
| "senior engineer" until you're 45, you're going to be in for
| a rough time when you get inevitably laid off.
| mgfist wrote:
| I stand by my take. A good engineer is not guaranteed to be
| a good lead. And a bad engineer isn't guaranteed to be a
| bad lead. They are different roles.
|
| Most competent companies let good engineers who won't be
| good leads stay in IC roles with bigger responsibilities.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Most guys in tech are laid off around 50-55.
|
| I know way to many Anchor-out, homeless, or stay at home
| dads (Kids moved out decades a ago, or sleeping in the
| basement. Wife begrudging hating your unemployed, but is
| still civil when you are around.) who were in Computer
| Managment.
|
| Save the money while you're young. Computer skills seem to
| mean nothing after 50. An those ass kissing people skills
| (Managment) are finished the moment you are laid off.
|
| You will not be the 65 year old working Doctor, or Lawyer.
|
| The barrier to entry is just too low, and since you guys
| are above unions; I hope you have a sympathetic family.
|
| It will make you liberal though.
|
| If you have the right attitude you will get through it
| though. A divorce might be necessary, but you probally knew
| that one was comming for years.
| strulovich wrote:
| My personal experience shows to the contrary, the super
| talented engineers do well, and get promoted much more easily.
|
| And I've seen many cases of "run-of-the-mill engineers" change
| cultural aspects of the office and the company.
|
| This is all based on mostly one employer, but a very big one. I
| suspect smaller companies make fast promotions for talented
| engineers and cultural changes even easier.
|
| (I do agree that sometimes people that look in no way special
| at first glance turn out to be fantastic founders)
| xwdv wrote:
| Promoted to what though? A job with more responsibility but
| not really a good enough increase in pay to go along with it?
| No thanks.
| avl999 wrote:
| Exactly, why are you chasing promotions? Isn't it ok to be
| happy with where you are and have satisfaction? My title is
| Sr Software Engineer. My boss keeps bringing up in our 1 on
| 1s about what we should do to carve out a path for a
| promotion to "Principal Engineer" but I don't care. The
| small amount of pay bump is just not worth the added
| responsibility (not to mention the hoops they make you jump
| for the promotion).
| sswaner wrote:
| This is a great mindset to have. I would especially
| recommend that you avoid management for as long as
| possible. The joy of building software is hard to replace
| once you hang it up and start attending meetings for a
| living.
| xwdv wrote:
| Exactly. For many people senior software engineer is a
| stepping stone to something more, for me, there is
| nothing greater. If I wanted to be more ambitious I'd
| start a business.
| Tcepsa wrote:
| Very reassuring to hear that I am not the only one in a
| position like that; thank you for sharing! (I am planning
| on stepping pretty firmly off the path to Principal Staff
| to substantially alleviate work-related stress and
| anxiety)
| avl999 wrote:
| The article is titled: Five Books that Changed _My_ Career as a
| Software Engineer
|
| The operative words being "My Career". The article is a
| subjective listing of books that the author found to be useful
| in their career and at the _stage_ of their career they read
| them. Not an edict of what every SWE needs to read to progress
| in their career.
|
| I have read 1 of the 4 books on your list (and read another
| partially) and haven't found them to be remotely helpful in my
| career progression. They may have huge impact on someone else
| at another stage of their career, that is the point of lists
| like these.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hintymad wrote:
| I find Outliers' chapter on Chinese people and rice field
| preposterous. It was like reading astrology: The entire Chinese
| people have grit, and their grit came from growing rice because
| it was such a laborious job. Really? Really? Really? Did the
| author even know that for thousands of years, it was the
| Northern China that dominated the history, and Northern Chinese
| largely grew wheat? And the book said Chinese were good at math
| because Chinese digits are short to pronounce. I'm sure
| Apollonius of Perga, Newton, Euler, Gauss, Hibert, Poincare,
| and countless others are rolling in their graves. Besides that
| fact that arithmetic is tiny part of maths, China produced good
| students in the past decades because Chinese invested in modern
| education, believed that a nation needed to have many great
| scientists and engineers, and relentlessly pushed students to
| learn more maths and science. The Qing Dynasty was a laugh
| stock in front of the rest of the modern world. The entire
| nation of China felt the pain and humiliation for not catching
| up with modern civilization.
|
| They will fuck anyone over for telling them they must lower
| their standards for the crap like being inclusive or no kids
| left behind, as if everyone can learn advanced maths. They's
| how they got better at maths. That's how they produce good
| students: they believe everyone's potential, and push students
| as hard as necessary. They still have catch-up to do, but they
| are getting closer everyday.
| fargo wrote:
| yeah that's a huge problem with all of Gladwell's work.
| Compelling but unsupported.
| bitexploder wrote:
| The best description of have scene of the pop psychology
| and pop business books is "knowledge porn". Guns germs and
| steel is like that. Makes the reader feel the secret
| history of the world or some topic is being revealed even
| though it's at least partially, or wholly, fantasy :)
| nefitty wrote:
| In my head, I consider these sorts of books more
| generalized models to run information through. For
| example, when I think about some historical occurrence I
| run it through evo bio, Marxism, geo determinism,
| critical race theory, symbolic culture, etc. Yeah, some
| of the origins of these models are dumbed-down, but my
| reasoning is that the more of these models I have, the
| closer I can get to that secret history :P
| wpietri wrote:
| Have you ever managed people? This bit does not match my
| experience at a number of companies: "you quite literally have
| no say [...] no one cares what your opinion is, as you have
| zero political capital".
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > as a run-of-the-mill engineer, you quite literally have no
| say in what the work/office culture of your employer is.
|
| Who hurt you?
|
| My experience has been quite the opposite. Creating a great
| work culture is well within the ability of even new engineers.
| I would probably suggest the opposite of you, in fact, and
| suggest that, between engineers and the VP/C-Suite level, mid
| or senior level engineers probably have the most sway over
| company culture. As an engineer, you have time, inclination,
| and ability. VPs don't have the time, CEOs don't have the
| inclination, and, frankly, no one but the boots on the ground
| have the ability.
| baash05 wrote:
| I'd argue that you have near 100% control over the work/office
| culture of your employer. You have 100% control over who you
| work for, so you can control the office culture you work in.
| It's a 1 to 1 relationship. If during an interview they say..
| "3 days in the office" you counter with "how about zero?" They
| say "The best we can do is 2", you again counter with "Zero
| works for me." Don't take the job.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| You do in fact seem to negative, and have a take on life that
| is a bit more cynical than reality. Completely dismissing any
| value in actually being a good engineer for career advancement
| for instance is a bit over the top. Suggesting companies always
| don't care about employee opinions as well. Real life is pretty
| bad sometimes but not universally dystopian.
| dvt wrote:
| > Suggesting companies always don't care about employee
| opinions as well.
|
| Ah yes, the same companies that laid off mass numbers of
| engineers in 2000 and did it all over again in 2008. The same
| companies that vehemently fight any kind of unionization
| efforts and the same companies that insist to haze potential
| hires with live-coding & whiteboarding tests even though
| folks have 10+ years of experience. The same companies that
| were wage-fixing employees' salaries and had to pay out
| almost half a billion dollars in restitution[1]. Those
| companies? If you think you have any kind of influence on
| corporate culture as random engineer #3419, I've got a bridge
| to sell you.
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/01/16
| /37...
| wiseowise wrote:
| > that insist to haze potential hires with live-coding &
| whiteboarding tests even though folks have 10+ years of
| experience.
|
| Don't see any problem here. I've met my share of "10+"
| years of "experience".
| buzzwords wrote:
| 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?
| ok_dad wrote:
| Try to find positions where they care more about your thought
| process and your past experience than in your ability to
| memorize facts about computers. I'm pretty good at my job and
| make pretty good software (I think), but I couldn't tell you
| how to form a red-black tree or do a bubble sort. I routinely
| look up simple Python syntax and how to articles on bash, but
| nonetheless I get good jobs, and I can reason about a problem
| and I can read and understand technical documentation. I
| started barely knowing Python and googling literally
| everything, like for loop syntax. I'm not going to be the next
| big name, but I have satisfaction in life and do ok.
| exdsq wrote:
| 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.
|
| I think the generic bit of this advice is to excel as an engineer
| is to focus on the business, not the tech.
| pkukkapalli wrote:
| Big +1. Most corporate software is pretty straightforward (the
| company likes it this way so that it's easier to onboard new
| engineers). So, you stand out by delivering something other
| engineers can't, deep insights into how software can solve
| specific domain problems.
| agumonkey wrote:
| And it's one of the rare good advice. Communication failure (or
| even slow) is so expensive, being the guy who can translate
| ideas clean and fast will make a lot of things better.
| vishnugupta wrote:
| This has been my experience as well. Beyond a level an engineer
| creates value by being at the intersection of product/UX,
| business, and tech; by being able to seamlessly transition
| between them.
|
| As a consequence if one changes jobs say every 2-3 years
| (different domains) then they become generalist engineers.
|
| In my experience one has to spend 10-12 months at a company to
| pick up a domain by being deliberate at it. It may look like a
| big investment but the payoff will be significant once they
| have sufficient context in their head.
| rmk wrote:
| This is good advice for something like finance. But many
| software companies are out to "disrupt" very broad areas, and
| unless you intend to stick in one such area, I doubt there is a
| whole lot of benefit to doing that.
|
| For example, if you are developing software at Uber, there is
| no "domain" to speak of. Ditto for a search engine at Google.
| The company pioneered information retrieval in the internet
| age, so what's the relevant "domain" there?
|
| Of course, if you are writing MCAS software for Boeing, having
| a good understanding of Control Systems, or Aeronautics (which
| you can gain by attending nontraditional programs in colleges
| or universities) will be very helpful. Same thing for something
| like trading firms (where it's practically formalized and there
| are programs that turn out quants), accounting firms (e.g.,
| Intuit) etc.
| hiq wrote:
| From your examples, it seems that you make a distinction
| between B2B (with possibly internal clients) and B2C.
|
| The general advice that would still apply to both would be:
| understand who your client is and what they need in the
| context in which they evolve, be they consumers in a country
| you're not familiar with or mechanical engineers you barely
| know the job of.
| exdsq wrote:
| Uber:
|
| - "Hey, I saw a statistic that females are anxious about
| taking taxis at night in France. Why don't we add a feature
| to let people share their locations with others?"
|
| - "In London taxi drivers have to pass The Knowledge, a test
| on roads! Have we considered adding a similar pre-requisite
| test for drivers in that city?"
|
| - "I noticed a lot of drivers on Reddit have been complaining
| that the tips aren't viewable on the app, but we have the
| data. Why don't we add that to the drivers UI?"
|
| Etc... The sources of this information would be user channels
| like Reddit, taxi-related news sources in countries you
| operate in, and keeping up to date on legislation. Sure you
| might not have the ability to make any of these changes yet
| but if you stay ahead on these factors it's definitely the
| way to move into a position where you can have that level of
| impact.
| dhosek wrote:
| Exactly. Programming is ultimately pretty simple. The hard part
| is the specific domain knowledge of the business.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You kind of have to be a rebel to get that knowledge. Most
| teams don't want developers talking to customers or spending
| time understanding the domain beyond their next ticket, and
| even in that case they'll get a product managers distilled
| version. If the industry has courses/exams and a path of its
| own that's helpful so you can get the knowledge that way.
| sateesh wrote:
| I don't think that is the case, or atleast that has not
| been my experience. Most teams would be happy if you do
| these, but not affecting the next deliverable. So if you
| are willing or can spend extra hours that becomes
| manageable, but one can't always be in a position to spend
| more hours working (priorities, family etc.). What would be
| best is team encourages your involvement and factors that
| in deciding the target date of your deliverables. This
| would win for both since knowing domain makes one to
| understand the problem better and program beetter.
| Epa095 wrote:
| "[...] ultimately pretty simple" you mean if you ignore
| everything making it hard?
|
| I must admit that this kind of attitude triggers me. I have
| worked in the energy sector, in engineering (but not IT)
| heavy companies, and many have this attitude. "its easy to
| learn programming", "we just need to teach the engineers
| python" etc etc, and I have seen MOUNTAINS OF SHIT so tall
| you would faint. It's easy to get tricked, because being both
| the user and developer at the same time can be such a boost.
| But the moment there are more users things get hard. The
| moment the code base gets so large that you can't keep it all
| in your head, it gets hard.
|
| Software development is easy until its not, and it
| surprisingly quickly gets to the "it's not" stage. And then
| you get excel sheets in python.
|
| Some "subject matter experts" make good programmers, but in
| my experience its not because their background, but because
| they are smart and have talent for it.
| kulig wrote:
| If youre doing simple stuff then its simple i guess
| rmk wrote:
| Writing individual programs is often quite simple, but
| developing software products is often not. It's a combination
| of taste, hard-won experience, a feel for the organizational
| dynamics at play, and of course, raw programming ability.
| Note that the things on the list, other than programming, are
| often pretty complicated!
| shu15 wrote:
| Would you mind sharing the investment finance cert you read?
| exdsq wrote:
| https://www.cisi.org/cisiweb2/cisi-website/study-with-
| us/fou...
|
| I believe it was this one with a slightly different name
| shu15 wrote:
| Thanks!
| creamytaco wrote:
| Not a single one of these books is worth reading imo.
| MadeThisToReply wrote:
| Anything you recommend instead?
|
| Personally, I got a lot of value from _Designing Data-Intensive
| Applications_ by Martin Kleppmann.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Omitting "the mythical man-month" under maybe the assumption
| that everyone has read it is a mistake. And anyone who hasn't
| read it probably should - I get stuff like my company's
| c-suite and directors asking for things that make it clear
| they haven't read it, I really have to fight the urge to gift
| them a copy of the book.
| iratewizard wrote:
| Ask the collective: https://hackernewsbooks.com/
| quincunx wrote:
| * Mythical Man Month (Experience)
|
| * Rapid Development (Profession)
|
| * Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (You're not alone, we all
| share this.)
|
| * The War of Art (At 9am, you are alone.)
|
| * Competitive Advantage (Porter, a personal choice, it's not
| about the bytes.)
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| The War of Art * is a must read for anyone and everyone.
|
| * For those who don't already know, it's a very quick read.
| And the type of book you'll gladly reread every one to
| three years.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > Designing Data-Intensive Applications
|
| Exceptional in every way.
| georgeburdell wrote:
| I don't think you meant this to be as absolute as it
| sounds, but as someone currently reading it, I find the
| asides, especially ones that focus on the nuances of a
| word's definition, such as "atomic", "consistent", etc. to
| be tedious while simultaneously lacking in clarity. I hope
| if Kleppmann ever does a 2nd edition that strips out some
| of this stuff and adds more examples, because most of his
| sales are probably from people like me who are job
| searching but lack distributed system design chops.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I did. And it is. There is no such book out there that
| covers breadth and sufficient depth at the expense of
| minor pedantry (that you're alluding to) without losing
| much meaning. For most engineers, being familiar with
| pros and cons of technology is far more important than
| nuances of terminology. They can and should investigate
| each topic more deeply when time comes.
|
| I repeat with emphasis: It is _exceptional in every way
| possible_. Improvements that you suggest should be
| addressed if it doesn 't take away from the breadth +
| detail and only make it more clear.
| cloverich wrote:
| I felt like parent first time I was reading and abandoned
| after a couple chapters. Went back recently and read it
| through. Wow. Agree with you. One of the best books I've
| read, could be improved but it's definitely in a tier
| beyond the majority of books in our field.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| They do look lame. Spoiler: the 5 books are
|
| * The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in
| Software Development
|
| * The Pragmatic Programmer - your journey to mastery(20th
| Anniversary Edition)
|
| * Unwritten Laws of Engineering - Second Edition
|
| * Remote: Office Not Required
|
| * Explain the Cloud Like I'm 10
| willisrocks wrote:
| I can't speak for the other books, but The Pragmatic
| Programmer is one of my favorites.
| urthor wrote:
| I've read The Pragmatic Programmer and large chunks of the
| Unwritten Laws of Engineering.
|
| They're excellent books, but they're targeted for early career
| developers and people struggling to figure out the office work
| life. It's fair to say that you're probably not the target
| audience, but they're really great books for their niche.
|
| I'm also extremely interested in the idea of reading a book
| about remote work after reading the blog.
|
| Maybe it's not Remote, but I should definitely read a book
| about working remotely, considering I do it for so much of my
| time.
| unbanned wrote:
| I agree, I'm sorry you're getting downvoted.
| baash05 wrote:
| Clean code... To this day I cringe when I see methods/functions
| over 20 lines long.. Or when I see commented code blocks in one
| function..
|
| Other have mentioned The Mythical Man Month, and I'd say it's a
| great book. Sadly, more often than not, it's something I wish I
| could staple to managements foreheads. "read this now before our
| next planning session"
|
| The Rspec book was a great book, that helped me fully embrace
| TDD, and this has led to more sleep filled nights than I had a
| right to before its consumption.
|
| 1984... This one terrified me so much, that I have to include it.
| I write code much more securely because of it.
|
| Strange in a Strange Land. If only because I learned what GROK
| means.
| Jare wrote:
| > I cringe when I see methods/functions over 20 lines long
|
| You may find this post interesting http://number-
| none.com/blow/john_carmack_on_inlined_code.htm...
| Copenjin wrote:
| >To this day I cringe when I see methods/functions over 20
| lines long..
|
| Wait until you have to follow dozens of 5 lines methods for the
| sake of unrequited abstraction that could have been compacted
| in an easier to read 30 line method.
| dunemaster wrote:
| Why the dots?
| Toine wrote:
| I thought only boomers do this.
| misja111 wrote:
| > .. The Mythical Man Month, and I'd say it's a great book.
| Sadly, more often than not, it's something I wish I could
| staple to managements foreheads. "read this now before our next
| planning session"
|
| Did you read the book? It's not about the (ab)use of
| mandays/months in planning sessions, it's about the huge
| differences in capacities between individual programmers and
| the importance of having some "10x programmers" in your team.
| wokwokwok wrote:
| That's a very opinionated view from someone who's actually
| read the book.
|
| I thought the whole thing was about having a plan, and many
| well structured, organised teams; having a 10x programmer
| makes no difference at all without the rest of the things; no
| matter how great you are, you can't do everything, and if you
| try, you'll become a bottleneck.
|
| I sympathise very much with wanting to staple "do you
| actually have a plan for how that's going to work?" to
| someone in a planning meeting.
|
| > Very good professional programmers are ten times as
| productive as poor ones, at same training and two-year
| experience level. (Sackman, Grant, and Erickson)
|
| > Sackman, Grant, and Erickson's data showed no correlation
| whatsoever between experience and performance. I doubt the
| universality of that result.
|
| > A small sharp team is too slow for really big systems.
|
| ^ literally a quotes from the book.
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| >1984... This one terrified me so much, that I have to include
| it. I write code much more securely because of it.
|
| What book?
| deelly wrote:
| 1984
| magnus_blackarm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
| moffkalast wrote:
| Your link seems to be broken?
| wiseowise wrote:
| > Clean code... To this day I cringe when I see
| methods/functions over 20 lines long.. Or when I see commented
| code blocks in one function..
|
| To this day I cringe when I see dogmatic opinions of a fraud
| taken like an absolute truth.
| aesyondu wrote:
| Interesting. This is the first time I've seen Robert Martin
| to be referred to as a fraud. I'd like to read an elaboration
| of this.
|
| I looked around and found this video
| [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb9VPWbrqmE][Uncle Bob
| (Robert Martin) is a Fraud!!!]] but most of the comments are
| dismissive of the review.
| nickelpro wrote:
| The examples in Clean Code are bad and would never make it
| through modern code review.
|
| qntm did an extensive overview of this:
| https://qntm.org/clean
| pydry wrote:
| >Interesting. This is the first time I've seen Robert
| Martin to be referred to as a fraud.
|
| I'm not sure if fraud is quite the right word but he gets a
| lot of flak on HN for being something of a religious
| fanatic. E.g. the top comment in this thread:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26153823
| ptx wrote:
| Not a great video. He starts by attacking Robert Martin for
| taking 10 minutes to get to the substance of his talk, but
| then his own video never progresses from there and never
| gets to anything substantial.
| croo wrote:
| Clean Code was the first book I read that suggested (with
| concrete examples and rules!) that I should use code as a
| communication medium to other programmers first and foremost,
| the orders you give to the computer comes second. It is an
| opinionated book and there are some dumb rules in it but it
| did way more good than harm to the dev community. Definitely
| not a fraud...
| avodonosov wrote:
| It would be interesting to know more about the author's career.
| zanethomas wrote:
| I got my start with
|
| o Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines --- Minsky
|
| o The Art Of Computer Programming --- Knuth
|
| o Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs --- Abelson
| and Sussman
|
| In that order. Everything else is syntactic sugar. <g>
| mgraczyk wrote:
| Some of the juicier bits from these books have been fairly well
| absorbed by engineering culture, ie "rubber duck debugging" and
| "DRY". Some of these books I haven't heard of though.
|
| As somebody who didn't study CS in college, the books that most
| changed my career were: * Algorithms, by Robert
| Sedgwick (probably not the best algorithms book, but lots of
| hands-on stuff) * Learning From Data, by Yaser S. Abu-
| Mostafa et. al. This one has video lectures to go along with it.
| * C Programming: A Modern Approach. (Definitely not the best, but
| also lots of hands on stuff)
|
| Another thing I've found _extremely_ educational is to read major
| incident postmortems (SEV0s and security SEV1s at FB, "huge"
| OMGs at Google). If you ever find yourself anywhere with planet-
| scale infrastructure, make sure to read these write-ups. They are
| treasure.
| 8589934591 wrote:
| For both C and Algorithms, what do you think is the best since
| you feel both the above books aren't the best?
| lovecg wrote:
| I've read The Pragmatic Programmer. It's not a bad book - I was
| nodding along the whole way. And that's sort of the problem with
| the books of this genre. The thing is, I recognize that these are
| good techniques because I already spent lots of time applying
| them. I just don't know if the idea of compressing years of hands
| on experience into a textbook works well in practice. This goes
| for most self-help books as well.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Self-help books don't work if you're just starting out. This is
| because the books sound trite and obvious and you haven't
| experienced enough failure yet.
|
| But they get very helpful once you've been in a few battles and
| failed miserably. You'll be able to determine where you went
| wrong, whereas before it escaped you. You'll then find out how
| to not make those mistakes again, and do it right next time.
| Jare wrote:
| When I read it I too found myself recognizing almost everything
| it says and it all felt almost obvious... I already had most of
| those insights myself, am I learning anything?
|
| The real value is that it is much much harder to pass that sort
| of insight along to engineers you work with or (especially more
| junior) manage. Books like that didn't make me a better writer
| of code, but I think they made me a much better communicator,
| engineer and manager.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| 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 portions when I
| was younger but never all the way through). There's a problem
| of becoming _too_ expert where you can 't communicate with
| novices in the field anymore, at least not like they actually
| need you to communicate with them. There was benefit, for me,
| in re-reading it and nodding along and being reminded of the
| things I'd learned along the way, getting a name for them, and
| a discussion I could use as a basis for my mentoring.
| gaws wrote:
| > It's a good book at a certain stage in your career.
|
| Such as?
| digianarchist wrote:
| I vaguely remember a chapter on code generation which was the
| only failed recommendation/prediction. The rest was spot on.
| pajko wrote:
| My career shaping "book" was Ralph Brown's Interupt List
| austincheney wrote:
| I have no doubt those books inspire people to become
| substantially better developers. I have observed in the large
| corporate world career progression is not linked to either
| quality of developer or quality of product.
|
| It is important to keep those in mind and then determine what is
| more important: career progression or work satisfaction.
| marsven_422 wrote:
| Read Uncle Bob's books.
| a_square_peg wrote:
| I didn't know about "Unwritten Laws of Engineering" - skimming
| through some of it, this is an excellent book and I wish I knew
| about it before.
|
| I was fortunate enough to be around senior engineers who took
| upon themselves to mentor junior engineers like myself. Now that
| I'm in their shoes, I find that the engineering landscape has
| changed quite a lot (especially in software) and often find that
| junior engineers don't see themselves needing to be mentored and
| sometimes even offended by recommendations.
|
| I think some of this can be seen in this thread as well - some
| are commenting about how bad these recommendations are, and some
| even about the general practice of recommending books (how dare
| you!).
|
| Given that the OP is just talking about books that he felt
| changed "his" career, I think it's really not something to be
| challenged and disagreed in such manners.
| whytaka wrote:
| As a self taught dev, the books that helped me most are:
|
| Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software
|
| The Design of the UNIX Operating System
|
| Designing Data-Intensive Applications
|
| They taught me that there is no magic. Everything is logical and
| comprehensible.
| aastronaut wrote:
| As another self taught, my favorites would currently be
| something like (from low- to high-level):
|
| - The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Compiler
| from First Principles
|
| - Operating Systems: Three Easy Pieces
|
| - Systems Performance: Enterprise and the Cloud
|
| - Exercises in Programming Style
|
| - The Little Typer
|
| - Conceptual Mathematics: A First Introduction to Categories
| agumonkey wrote:
| I liked the `little` series. It's a bit slow if you already
| know enough circular lispiness but they really manage to make
| a full theory emerge from tiny innocent questions. Brilliant.
|
| I could add Queinnec's Lisp in small pieces (for the gradual
| derivation of fancier and fancier interpreters, the
| continuation one in CLOS was cool, and the bytecode part also
| very very cool)
|
| Bratko's Prolog book was nice.
|
| I'm tempted to mention the dragon book but I only read 40%.
| hidden-spyder wrote:
| Would you please elaborate how specifically each of these
| helped you?
| whytaka wrote:
| CODE teaches you about how computation can be structured out
| of circuits and switches and ultimately transistors. I now
| understand the fundamental nature of electronic computation.
|
| UNIX taught me about the how an OS deals with hardware
| resources and the software that run on them. I now understand
| the environment in which my processes live as well as the
| structure of a process.
|
| DDIA taught me about the structure of data, how databases
| operate on data through transactions, the difficulties of
| synchronization across databases, and the way data streaming
| works.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I love love LOVE Petzold's Code.
|
| Designing Data-Intensive Applications was really good too, the
| best new technical book I've read in the last five years or so,
| though I have had trouble applying its techniques thus far.
| craigching wrote:
| SICP has already been mentioned a couple of times and I agree
| with that 100%. What I find helps me more than anything to be a
| better programmer is to find those gems that take you out of your
| day-to-day routine and help you see programming in a different
| way. So a couple of other books I'd throw in with SICP are "The
| art of Prolog" and "The Little Schemer." I still today admire
| Prolog's declarative style so much today. Even though I haven't
| had the opportunity to use it professionally, I still come back
| to it now and then to refresh on it.
| Lhiw wrote:
| Pragmatic programmer is rather problematic for me.
|
| I think it covers some good basics for people early in their
| career but a lot of its guidance can be harmful when taken
| extremely literally or like dogma.
| abetusk wrote:
| Archive.org has "The Unwritten Laws of Engineering" by W.J. King
| available (one of the book recommendations) [0].
|
| [0] https://archive.org/details/the-unwritten-laws-of-
| engineerin...
| JackMorgan wrote:
| My recommendations can be found categorized here:
| http://deliberate-software.com/page/books/
|
| A few in there are marked as "dangerous" - books that I've seen
| totally destroy productivity, but I included them since it's
| impossible to refute what you don't understand.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The one thing that I find is not helpful, is the "litmus test"
| approach.
|
| i.e. "You are a bad programmer/engineer/scientist/person, because
| you did not read this book, or know this technique." Thing.
|
| I see this frequently. As a [mostly] self-taught software
| developer, I've been on the receiving end of a lot of this
| behavior.
|
| In my case, I have a real "Oh yeah? I'll show you!" streak. I
| became expert at stuff, simply because some e-bully told me I was
| bad at it (because they were the only ones fit to judge others).
|
| Not everyone has that kind of stubbornness. I suspect that a hell
| of a lot of truly gifted folks never realized their passions, and
| that our industry has been robbed of significant talent, as a
| result.
|
| Maybe I'm looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, or I was
| fortunate to run into the people I did, but I don't recall
| encountering a lot of this behavior, when I was getting started.
| I needed a lot of help and nurturing, when I was younger, until I
| reached the confidence level required to have an "Oh yeah?"
| response. I'm grateful that I got it.
|
| _" A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a
| yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by
| a frown on the right person's brow." -Charles Browder_
| pydry wrote:
| Litmus tests are how git has managed to get away with having
| such an abysmal UX.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _" A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a
| yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death
| by a frown on the right person's brow." -Charles Browder_
|
| Not just ideas, people have lost their careers to unkind jibes.
| Here's English Cricketer Monty Panesar explaining the
| unexpected course his life took after a retort by Australian
| cricketer Shane Warne that "Panesar hasn't played 33 matches,
| but the same match 33 times" in a damning indictment of his
| uninventiveness and inadaptability:
| https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/28/monty-panesar-...
|
| A relevant comment from a thread on CalyxOS:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28101853
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> A relevant comment from a thread on CalyxOS:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28101853_
|
| Ooh... that's ugly.
| rzzzt wrote:
| "I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I
| fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times." - Bruce
| Lee
|
| So now I'm thoroughly confused, which one is better?
| mattcwilson wrote:
| The intentional one.
| solarmist wrote:
| I'm pretty sure Bruce Lee would agree that the one kick
| needs to be employed in many contexts and situations for
| that to hold.
|
| I don't think the concept was as well known. There was less
| chance for robotic/fragile implementation of things in the
| past.
| headmelted wrote:
| 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.
|
| Regardless, there was a student on one of their projects who
| was struggling - I had spoken to this person a few times and
| they seemed eager enough to learn and had a friendly manner. I
| never worked with them directly so couldn't comment on their
| capability - but even then, they were at the start of their
| career and still learning so obviously you would have tempered
| expectations.
|
| Anyway, one day M comes in and people ask if newbie is out sick
| or is coming in later that day. M proudly exclaims that they
| won't be coming back as they had a heart-to-heart the day
| before and M let them know that software development was not
| the career for them, that they didn't have the right skills for
| it, and that they should pursue a career doing something else
| instead.
|
| M was saying this with a grin, not out of malice, but as if
| they'd just saved this poor soul from wasting their time trying
| to succeed at a career that this expert of the craft could tell
| they were unfit for.
|
| I was utterly dumbfounded that someone could be so incredibly
| conceited as to think they could possibly make a determination
| like that of someone just starting out that was getting no
| support from their boss.
|
| I left soon after in no small part because I actually felt
| nauseous being around the person after that. I don't think they
| stayed around for long but I heard from long-term folks in the
| same place that the distaste of this individual was fairly
| widespread.
|
| tldr; we're all just bags of meat, eating and pooping on a ball
| of rock flying through the cosmos. Be kind to people, and pull
| your head out of your ass.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I was really hoping for some karma in this story, but it
| wasn't there :(
| [deleted]
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| 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 had a
| decade.
|
| These were senior C++ developers. They could have gone
| anywhere.
| mjburgess wrote:
| I can't speak to this story itself, but I wonder about the
| general principal underneath these sorts of objections.
|
| That is: we should just be naively encouraging of people to
| pursue whatever they happen to be trying to pursue. This
| seems born of a boomer-era "be yourself" world view in which
| "anything is possible". I think this cheats people a great
| deal.
|
| When physics is demonstrated in schools and TV as some game,
| it shouldnt take until Masters to figure out it isnt.
| Programming likewise.
|
| What I see in this culture of "be yourself" is really an
| admonishment for not "trying to be successful", in the
| narrowest sense, ie., blindly pursuing programming even
| though you're not suited to it.
|
| People shouldn't be hoodwinked into careers they arent going
| to like on the basis they "should like them" because
| presumably "anyone can be successful" and "everyone needs
| encouragement". Underneath this ideology is a very narrow
| notion of success, and a very concerning lack of empathy.
|
| "Encouragement" isnt a neutral good; it's an instrument to
| develop people -- often in one's own image. There's a lot of
| people "encouraged" into career's that depress them.
| baranoff wrote:
| So true. Direct feedback is way under appreciated.
| [deleted]
| thewakalix wrote:
| Maybe some people take to programming like a fish to water,
| but plenty of others struggled at first. Knowing when to
| give up is important, but part of that is knowing when
| _not_ to give up. That is a complicated and individual
| question; an ignorant gatekeeper who discourages anyone who
| 's not immediately successful isn't helping here.
| mjburgess wrote:
| The gordon-ramsey (army coach, sports coach, theatre
| director, ballet director...) school of "encouragement"
| prescribes the opposite.
|
| That is: if you arent passionate enough to overcome
| discouragement, you arent passionate enough to excel.
|
| Of course, we dont need excellent programmers en-mass.
| However, it is interesting to observe that this
| "egotistic troupe leader" is a fairly common form of
| small-group excellence-seeking human organization -- and
| appears to work.
|
| It gets more-and-more common when looking at how the best
| "troupe-sized" groups in the world are organized.
|
| I'd be interested in research on this area.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| 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.
| mjburgess wrote:
| 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 myself in writing dynamic dispatch MVC
| frameworks as a teenager; I could produce a whole
| framework and app in a 1hr technical interview -- is this
| useful? I dont know).
|
| I raise this because I've become increasingly interested
| in rationalising the Ramsey-esq autocrat, as its always
| been a part of myself I have been most self-critical of;
| because I am at once very sensitive to upsetting people
| but also "brutally attentive" to their (and my own)
| failure.
|
| I have recently been asking myself: is this brutality
| actually useful? How much? Does it really require the
| humiliation a Ramsey or drill-sarg engages in?
|
| Recent western cultural mores are aimed at ameliorating
| ego-injuries. Is there value in causing ego-injuries? Is
| there value in humiliation? Clearly there is -- it works
| in some cases.
|
| Its a weird question to ask though: our culture is so
| preoccupied with preventing ego-injury... it seems
| immoral and absurd to suggest causing them.
| headmelted wrote:
| So I've thought about this in the years since.
|
| Here's the thing though: the person in question was
| already struggling, as a new person in an office of
| people with experience, without assistance from their
| manager.
|
| For their boss to tell them some variant of "you're not
| cut out for this" in that vulnerable of a position when
| you have no frame of reference (and when it's from the
| same manager that was supposed to have been helping you)
| is _wildly_ different to hearing that from an impartial
| peer.
| agomez314 wrote:
| SICP made me fall in love with programming
| pkrumins wrote:
| Totally disagree. SICP is the most boring and hard to read book
| ever written and I don't recommend it to anyone.
| craigching wrote:
| Second this. I credit this book for making me the programmer I
| am today. Scheme is such a wonderful language having come from
| C/C++ before it. Of all the subjects that affected me by
| learning Scheme, using Scheme to implement OO as message
| passing opened my eyes compared to C++.
|
| Link to a pdf of the book:
| https://web.mit.edu/alexmv/6.037/sicp.pdf
| diavelguru wrote:
| I'm so happy these comments and conversations may take place now
| given we as software engineers have reached a saturation point
| where we are made up of those who are not just satisfied with a
| Java book or a Ruby book; rather we are made up of a body of
| members who use the tens of languages that are flourishing today
| in our programming stack.
|
| I love it!
| euske wrote:
| 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 threshold
| of interest, so to speak. A better way, if I'd suggest, is to
| pick a choice quote from the books. Quotes can be hit and miss,
| but when they click, it can pique the reader's interest in a much
| more acute way.
| balaji1 wrote:
| I thought I was the only one who felt this way^. Dunno why this
| article is upvoted so much. Actually the post heading itself
| seemed so clickbait-y that I didn't click into this link and
| the comments until it reached 500 votes.
| wpietri wrote:
| Huh. Mine would be:
|
| * The Mythical Man-Month, Brooks
|
| * Rapid Development, McConnell
|
| * Extreme Programming Explained, Beck, et al
|
| * Test-Driven Development by Example, Beck
|
| * Domain-Driven Design, Evans
|
| And something that wasn't a book but made a huge impact was Eric
| Ries's blog, Startup Lessons Learned, circa 2009. He correctly
| spotted that things like Extreme Programming are generic software
| development processes, but that in specific domains you could
| take advantage of their flexibilty to enable new business
| practices, as in Blank's "Customer Development" process.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I love the Mythical Man-Month, but it's one of those books that
| only software engineers seem to read, and they already know
| what's in it.
| MobileVet wrote:
| When I met Fred Brooks, I had no idea who he was. He was just
| another grandparent of a student in a club I was volunteering
| with. Spent some time with him on a road trip even. Such a
| humble and kind man.
|
| It wasn't until our 3rd or 4th interaction that I put two and
| two together. The result was a very nicely signed and
| personalized copy of the MMM.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Ah, but bad management likes to -claim- to have read it.
| Sometimes just having the reference can be leverage, i.e.,
| "Well, as per the Mythical Man Month, not all tasks can be
| parallelized. We can't take three women and complete a
| pregnancy in 3 months, 3x as fast, after all. This is one of
| those cases - we won't speed things up by adding people, but
| we might make things worse"
| Joeri wrote:
| The pregnancy analogy has been incredibly helpful to
| explain the nature of a critical path throughout my career.
| People instantly get it. I'm often credited with thinking
| up this analogy because outside of programmers nobody reads
| MMM.
| alecbz wrote:
| Sometimes I can't believe that as an industry we've failed
| to internalize things we've known about for almost half a
| century.
|
| It'd be one thing if there were managers out there actively
| disputing the ideas in the book, but I don't really ever
| see that. Like you say, more often I find managers that
| claim to have read it and agree. But still, shit like
| "let's flag if this project is late so we can try to add
| more people to it" gets said _all_ the fucking time.
|
| I think with a lot of managers, trusting downwards just
| isn't a thing they're able to do, and so the only move they
| think they have is to view engineers as miners chipping
| away at "man-months" of software work. Sometimes I almost
| think it doesn't matter to them if it actually works or
| not, it's just the only move they see so it's the only
| thing they'll do.
| lostcolony wrote:
| Well, speaking as a manager, I can tell you a LOT of that
| is coming from above middle management too, and the
| optics of adding people and failing is better than not
| adding people and failing.
|
| Heck, I stepped away from my last job in part because the
| environment was that (really, 'leadership' was just
| generally so bad, and this was but one of its
| manifestations of suck). I kept having status meetings as
| we neared a due date (that had been set by product, not
| engineering, and which our velocity said we would not
| make) asking us if we'd make the date. To which I replied
| "Data says no; gut says maybe. If I say we're not going
| to make the date, what are we going to do differently?",
| and to which they had no answer -except- "pull people
| from other projects and put them on this one". Nevermind
| that the whole difficulty was learning the integrative
| aspects, i.e., communication, NOT implementation (and
| that was why gut said maybe; we had learned a lot
| already, which is what took a lot of time; we were still
| facing both known and unknown unknowns).
|
| Meanwhile, the teams that were getting kudos were the
| ones where managers were just like "yep, we're
| floundering; give us more people". If they succeed, they
| were brilliant and knew to ask for help. If they failed,
| well, it was doomed, but at least they knew to ask for
| help. Nevermind if more people were actually helpful, and
| derailing other projects just to get them was worthwhile.
| Clearly, I was a bad cultural fit; I cared more about
| getting things done efficiently.
|
| The Mythical Man Month reference there was helpful for
| not derailing things by having more people thrown in the
| mix; it wasn't helpful for avoiding blame.
| wpietri wrote:
| > a LOT of that is coming from above middle management
|
| For sure. One of the curses of the modern business
| environment is the belief in management as a universal
| skill. That if one has an MBA one can manage anything.
| That all one needs to do is find the appropriate graph
| and make it go up and to the right. In practice it ends
| up being an erasure of domain-specific knowledge in favor
| of the naive beliefs of the powerful.
|
| A great example comes via Poppendieck's "The Tyrrany of
| the Plan": https://www.infoq.com/presentations/tyranny-
| of-plan/
|
| Transcript here: https://chrisgagne.com/1255/mary-
| poppendiecks-the-tyranny-of...
|
| The Empire State Building was built on time and under
| budget, but they did not have a complete plan when they
| started. This sounds impossible to the modern ear, but
| that's because executives see plans as a substitute for
| competence.
| pydry wrote:
| It has a tendency to rankle managers trying to boost their
| headcount.
|
| It's difficult to get a man to understand something when
| their raise depends upon them not understanding it.
|
| I can still remember when the CTO I argued with came into the
| room one day and said that he'd been given the green light to
| hire as many additional people as he liked. He was grinning
| from ear to ear. I suspect he knew it wouldn't actually fix
| any of our issues but he didn't really care.
| analog31 wrote:
| I've found if a book or idea doesn't come to them through
| their own network, then it's easily just dismissed.
| Especially if the book is nearing a half century old. About
| the saying that adding people to a late project makes it
| later, the simple retort was: "But we have agile scrum."
| End of discussion.
| [deleted]
| BrissyCoder wrote:
| https://www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/read_princprog...
|
| https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html
| tomcat27 wrote:
| Rhetorics come and go.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I read The Phoenix Project a while ago, and it was pretty good to
| understand what DevSecOps is supposed to mean. It also convinced
| me that simpler processes are better and you add layers to those
| simple processes only if they are necessary. Sometimes you should
| accept that a more complex process might help track metrics
| better or might be logically better, but the simpler process is
| easier for everyone to grok and in that way easier to communicate
| about. It's been a few years since I read it but it was also
| entertaining to read in more of a story form than in the usual
| technical or managerial language.
| Sebguer wrote:
| I honestly found the writing in the Phoenix Project painful,
| but I'm surprised you're the only one to mention it since I've
| heard it come up a fair bit elsewhere. I think it's probably
| more popular in the more traditional IT world than HN's typical
| audience.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I'm not very particular about reading so I'll just steam
| ahead on even the crappiest books.
|
| For nonfiction books I mostly put myself in the mindset of
| learning or conceptualizing the content in a more abstract
| way, like building a mind map.
|
| For fiction, I picture the story like a movie, which
| distracts me from bad writing, so this book hit that sweet
| spot for me, personally, where I could imagine the world and
| the events but also conceptualize the abstract content.
|
| I actually wish I could read more technical books that have
| fiction and technical concepts mixed like that!
|
| Edit: Also, for as much as people complain about DevOps here,
| I'm amazed so few people have read this book. It's literally
| the book that invented DevOps as a term, right?
| Sebguer wrote:
| It didn't invent the term. John Allspaw and Paul Hammond
| maybe did, in this talk:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdOe18KhtT4 (from the
| comments, I guess this talk is actually referenced in the
| book?)
|
| Other places credit Patrick Debois who ran the first
| devopsday in the same year:
| https://newrelic.com/devops/what-is-devops
| ok_dad wrote:
| Thanks, my memory gets a bit fuzzy after a while.
| eatonphil wrote:
| For me: * Effective Python * Designing Data
| Intensive Applications * High Performance Browser
| Networking * Google SRE Book (maybe)
| anon2020dot00 wrote:
| I'd recommend books by Clayton Christensen such as the
| Innovator's Dilemma and How Will You Measure Your Life.
|
| Just the section on correlation vs causation is invaluable.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Amazon currently has a "buy 3 for the price of 2" for some books.
| https://www.amazon.com/promotion/psp/AFPAOXML5M9KX Looks like a
| lot of physical books are half off as well.
| jakey_bakey wrote:
| I've not got through the majority, but I consider the up-to-date
| list on Teach Yourself Computer Science as the best one that
| currently exists:
|
| https://teachyourselfcs.com/
|
| The top 2 recommendations - based on return to learning on time
| invested - are: 1. Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective
| 2. Designing Data-Intensive Applications
| spir wrote:
| This book changed my software career
|
| "Developer Hegemony"
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0722H41SG
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Guide.
|
| The book for the last PC that I could completely comprehend and
| bend to my will. And then came the # _$_ _! Mac OS. Freedom into
| slavery. Rainbow into chrome.
| Osiris wrote:
| 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 this information for
| brains that work like mine?
| wokwokwok wrote:
| You don't need to read these books end to end.
|
| The a builds on b builds on c style of learning is only _one
| way_ of learning things, and in many cases, the foundations (a,
| b) serve you no real value.
|
| Just jump to the sections that interest you (c) and go back to
| previous sections if you feel like you've lost track of what
| they're talking about.
|
| For example, the first 20 pages of 'Remote' cover why remote
| working is good. It is intended for people who are considering
| _if_ remote working is suitable. If that's not relevant to you,
| do not waste your time reading it.
|
| Of course, you still have to actually sit and read the chapters
| that interest you... but, if you struggle with that for the
| chapters you're _actually interested in_ perhaps a more project
| based (do a thing, use references from book) approach, or notes
| based (treat book as study text, rewrite it as your own notes)
| might work for you.
|
| ...but, don't feel bad. These are super boring ass books with a
| few interesting parts to them.
| criddell wrote:
| Books have been written on how to read a book.
|
| Often, it's some variant of starting with studying the table
| of contents then doing a fast first pass of the text. That's
| usually a pretty good way of figuring out where to start.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| I honestly think it's alright. After spending 40-50 waking
| hours with tech in a week the last thing I want is extend the
| tech, or professional aspect, of my life more.
|
| I love reading literature though. Hours, engrossed.
|
| This might just be me. Tech is just a means to pay the bills
| for me - there's no passion, hatred, love involved here.
| nesarkvechnep wrote:
| Are these very technical really?
| pkukkapalli wrote:
| Yeah, I'm the same way. I've gotten better at it though by
| "practicing." For me, it's the same process as strength
| training. You need progressive overload. Start with easy to
| read attention capturing books, and slowly progress to harder
| and harder books.
| mohoromitch wrote:
| I personally think that it goes deeper than just the ability to
| read and absorb. You to ask, and understand the motivations
| _for_ reading something, otherwise it's going to feel like a
| chore. I just finished "How to Take Smart Notes" and it
| seriously changed how I view readings like this. Where it's not
| for a short term gain, but rather an incremental increase in my
| knowledge base.
|
| The content may not be super relevant immediately, but the book
| and (really simple) methodology of taking notes on these
| readings and graphing relationships between concepts means
| you're slowly building a network of knowledge that grows and
| becomes more powerful over time.
|
| I used to but now it feels like a fun game to me.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| It doesnt detract from your general point but I dont think any
| of these recommended books would qualify as very technical.
|
| Pragmatic Programmer for example could be thought of as a very
| curated list of blog articles. Great book, but also not
| intimidating or deeply technical in that sense.
| rmk wrote:
| None of these books are very technical in nature. Some of them
| are, in fact, as far as you can get from technical, e.g.,
| Explain the Cloud like I'm Ten.
|
| If you can't read books, then you are missing out on a lot.
| It's important to be able to read books (and work through large
| portions of them). Start reading books by reading fiction, then
| transition into nonfiction books (that are closer to fiction at
| first, e.g., history), finally transitioning into long-form
| technical books. If your budget permits, buy a long-form book
| on a technical topic and commit to reading it instead of just
| jumping on a website. For example, if you want to learn
| Kubernetes, just buy the Kubernetes book written by Beda et.
| al. I doubt any website will be better than that, and you will
| spend perhaps a week or two on a shallow read of the book, but
| you'll have found that you have a much better appreciation of
| the subject matter than you would have had you just glanced at
| a few website articles.
| andrewzah wrote:
| 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 through the publishing
| process, etc.
| underdeserver wrote:
| 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.
| pastage wrote:
| 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.
| underdeserver wrote:
| I actually think Calculus textbooks are justified in
| being long. he material is just so hard to grasp for
| newbies that giving you more and more examples sort of
| provides you with more time to digest the ideas in the
| background. Many students need that at that stage in
| their studies.
| _n_b_ wrote:
| 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.
| rasfincher wrote:
| It would be nice if the table of contents marked where to
| start if you're already familiar with programming
| concepts.
| boppo1 wrote:
| Learnxinyminutes?
| zatkin wrote:
| I had this exact problem.
|
| I set a single New Years Resolution goal to build this
| muscle: 12 books in this year. I've read 22 now.
|
| What compels me to keep reading is the Reading Insights
| Streak feature in Kindle. It's like a little reminder I can
| always check on to see if I've read today or not.
| nsomaru wrote:
| It seems like if you need to remind yourself if you've read
| today or not you aren't doing "deep reading".
|
| Schopenhauer's essay "On Reading" is instructive here. He
| recommends reading fewer books but going deeper into them.
| zatkin wrote:
| While listening to Derek Sivers and Shane Parish talk
| about reading, I found Derek's comment to be, what I
| think, is a way to 'go deeper': assuming you've made
| highlights in a book, when you finish it, spend time
| thinking about each highlight. Take unnecessary words out
| of the highlighted text. Get to the core of the words
| that really triggered you to think different. I've yet to
| do this.
| sriku wrote:
| 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-Design-
| John-Ouste... . I haven't run into software design/tech books
| like that very often.
| baranoff wrote:
| Second that book! I have read dozens of technical books,
| but none come close in practical wisdom. If you have been
| in the industry and worked on large projects you will find
| it very relevant. I hope it is also as relevant and easy to
| understand for people who do not have many years of
| experience already.
| janto wrote:
| 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.
| benji-york wrote:
| I consider myself very agile/test-driven-leaning and I
| got a lot out of the book. It provided nice restatements
| of many things I've vaguely thought over the years and
| some nice new ideas.
| sriku wrote:
| The book came out of Ousterhout's course on software
| design where he reviews student code as they work on a
| significant problem - building a text editor. There is
| _very_ little (if any) material out there of this nature
| that goes much beyond personal opinion (usually under the
| guise of experience) and sloganeering. This one though,
| is a hearty dive into the delectable details of design.
| fergonco wrote:
| I read novels just to reduce the pace of my brain.
|
| Maybe your brain does not need to work like that.
| [deleted]
| dgellow wrote:
| 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
| all.
| goodpoint wrote:
| I've never found a podcast that is not full of idle chatter.
| Admittedly I gave up searching after trying some
| astonishingly dull ones.
|
| The only exception was a Linux kernel podcast but the format
| was really unsuitable for the topic.
|
| Do you have any good technical podcast to recommend?
| dgellow wrote:
| CppCast is awesome, even if you're not a C++ developer:
| https://cppcast.com/
|
| "Algorithms + Data structures = programs":
| https://adspthepodcast.com/
|
| Crypto Critics' Corner may be my favorite podcast:
| https://cryptocriticscorner.com/
|
| Anything from microbe.tv: https://www.microbe.tv/science-
| shows/. They have podcasts covering evolution,
| microbiology, neuroscience, parasitism, virology, urban
| agriculture, and more. Lot of stuff to dig into, you can
| try and see which one you like.
|
| Not technical, but I like to listen to Startup Therapy, I
| like how they openly talk about failures and mistakes:
| https://adspthepodcast.com/
| moffkalast wrote:
| 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.
| dgellow wrote:
| Interesting, I have the opposite issue :)
|
| I cannot just sit and listen without doing anything, I need
| to be doing something with my body to be able to stay focus
| on an audio feed. I mean, I can do it but I won't be able
| to keep my attention on the audio content. When I bike,
| walk, or do laundry, no problem at all!
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| My trick is to keep a stack of these books around, and when I
| have some downtime I flip one open to a random page and read. I
| also keep a few in my car and on my desk at work.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| I totally agree, to the point where I'm skeptical about people
| saying they've read something cover to cover.
|
| Someone once recommended me to start at the back of each
| chapter and do the the problems and only read the chapter or
| even parts of the chapter for problems I couldn't solve.
|
| It comes with its own set of drawbacks but it does help with
| getting through text books where the author was paid by per
| letter.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Is not that hard, you just start at the front and make your
| way to the back.
|
| For the really good books you'll actually reach the end.
| nevster wrote:
| It's not that hard. I try to spend 10 minutes a day reading
| some sort of technical book. Just set a timer and do it. I
| don't always get around to it. Here's a list of the various
| tech books I've read cover to cover over the last couple of
| decades:
| https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/5348644-neville-
| ridley...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| b3morales wrote:
| 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.
| liam_odo wrote:
| Not a dev, sysadmin, but I agree, I find technical books
| exceptionally boring.
|
| My example is from the Windows Internals books, it's a great
| book, but I don't think the authors could write it in a
| "gripping" way, that's just technical books.
|
| What I do however be it books or video is chunks, takes MUCH
| longer to do but I find for me it sticks, so if in my learning
| season (I do bursts of learning, burn out leave it for a couple
| of months, rinse repeat),
|
| - Read a section or chapter - Make quick, rapid notes in my
| notes app (or notebook, I use bear but whatever suits yourself)
| - Once I've done, go to sleep (I normally study at night, my
| brains more in a learning mode then for me) - Maybe at dinner
| time (at work) I go through my notes, if it's something I feel
| may benefit my colleagues I make a brief PowerPoint, I try to
| translate it into a less technical write up, not everyone is
| super technical, it's just a job to them!.
|
| I have a terrible memory for learning, I remember things long
| term great, short term not so much, so I reference my notes a
| lot, it's essentially my mind map/bank.
|
| Video learning is very subjective, I'm currently learning Cisco
| Umbrella and it's very boring to me, the creators voice is very
| mono tone and boring to the point I've nearly fallen asleep,
| but other creators (mostly in the Microsoft MVP zone) are very
| lively, a good mix of demos and theory that keep me engaged and
| actively want to learn, Pluralsight is the same, keeps me awake
| and motivated, I found CBT a little on the boring side in
| comparison.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Reading attention is a skill that can be trained ... and
| forgotten.
|
| When I was a kid, I read books by the meter, regular at the
| local library. At age 35, after life happened and after I was
| immersed in quick internet articles, I realised I haven't
| finished a book in ages. Which made me slowly read more, having
| that extra page after "mental exhaustion", slowly working my
| way up to a while chapter ... trying to get back into the
| habit.
|
| Now at age 41, I read long stuff again - best decision I've
| made. But I am under no illusion that I won't fall back into
| bit-sized consumption if I would stop keeping it up.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Honestly my problem with books like the ones in this list is
| that they _aren 't_ very technical. It's similar to business
| books and self help books for me, I feel like there isn't any
| concrete information, just anecdotal stories that I only find
| semi-interesting. I find myself zoning out while reading them.
| And I'm not saying the advice isn't good! I just struggle to
| stay engaged with it.
| throwaway1988-5 wrote:
| 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 reason.
|
| Issues with focus, staying on task and motivation are generic
| issues that everyone has. Just like everyone gets sad or down
| sometimes. When it becomes a constant problem that affects your
| life, that's when it becomes a depression and needs treatment.
| ADHD is similar, except that it doesn't really come and go but
| is more of an undulating constant.
| lordnacho wrote:
| 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.
| rileyphone wrote:
| I would recommend trying something like l-theanine, or
| other any of the other supplements which have purported
| effects on focus.
| chaosite wrote:
| 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.
| lordnacho wrote:
| > 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.
| 1ibsq wrote:
| 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.
| Aeolun wrote:
| That seems very unlikely. At least compared to the chance
| of the drugs having an unmitigated positive effect.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Ok so how do I give this a try?
| 1ibsq wrote:
| With the same attitude like any other drug, I guess. It's
| very likely less harmful than other drugs. If you're
| mindful about it and you really want to try it, then ...
| chrsig wrote:
| 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.
| chrsig wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway1988-5 wrote:
| A little trick for technical articles that I've found is to
| use screen readers.
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| 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 association between ADHD and substance abuse, and I can
| see why. Pharmacology is a cheat code: a few hours of
| infinite motivation, will power, and attention.
|
| Unfortunately, when people start needing a substance just
| to feel normal, that is the definition of an addiction.
|
| (* More complicated than just Dopamine or Serotonin, both
| seem to play a role. Medecine has not solved this one yet.)
| amelius wrote:
| > Unfortunately, when people start needing a substance
| just to feel normal, that is the definition of an
| addiction.
|
| If they would otherwise not feel normal and there are no
| negative side effects, is that a problem?
| loves_mangoes wrote:
| That's a tough question to answer, and I think people
| should make that decision for themselves, with all the
| information they have about their particular situation.
|
| Negative side effects of note with usual ADHD medication
| (amphetamine salts) include increased cardiovascular
| load, development of a tolerance (you need higher doses
| to achieve the same effect). Sometimes amphetamines
| induce small changes in personality, rarely full blown
| psychosis (this has happened at therapeutic doses!).
|
| In general you should apply the same sort of risk-benefit
| analysis we use for every other drug. If you don't
| experience any side effects so strong you want to stop,
| and you believe you're aware of the risks, great.
|
| If you're taking them without a script, I'd advise you to
| find a steady-state dose that works for you and stick to
| it. Don't let yourself increase the frequency or the dose
| without a conscious decision. That's how many people have
| spiraled.
|
| Finally, I think it's important to have a lot of respect
| for psychoactive chemicals. Nature doesn't care very much
| for human overconfidence. If you start being careless,
| chemistry will do what chemistry does.
| boppo1 wrote:
| >there are no negative side effects
|
| I'm a prescription-attention-drugs person and specified
| drugs do not exist.
| chrsig wrote:
| > 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?
| lordnacho wrote:
| What are the go to options?
| chrsig wrote:
| 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
| analog31 wrote:
| I admit that I got through a lot of technical books by learning
| things in a classroom. I don't subscribe to the "children have
| different ways of learning," but I don't think I would have
| survived my college majors (math and physics) had I tried to
| learn them on my own from books, even good books.
|
| On the other hand, I taught myself electronics and programming
| from a combination of books and just trying things. Maybe
| trying things is a different kind of classroom in a sense.
| Certainly a different teacher: Mother Nature, who takes no crap
| from cocky teenagers.
| mjrbrennan wrote:
| It's not just you. I have a terrible time trying to get through
| technical / programming books, they put me to sleep. Not
| everyone learns the same way and that's okay. I have no problem
| getting through huge fiction books, so it's not a "book
| problem".
| [deleted]
| wiseowise wrote:
| > 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]
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| I don't know why but I've always loved reading technical
| content cover to cover. It started with cereal boxes when I was
| a kid and I would read ALL of the text. In my teens it was
| MaximumPC and 4Wheeler magazine that I would read cover to
| cover. Now I buy random tech books for things I want to know
| about like Hadoop, KVM virtualization, Code Complete, etc.
| pkrumins wrote:
| I agree that many of these books are hard and super boring to
| read. That's why I always recommend books that are written in
| easy and accessible style, such as The Little Schemer, The New
| Turning Omnibus, and Programming Pearls (not Perl but Pearls by
| Jon Bentley). Or, books that are written in problem-hint-
| solution style, such as The Little Book of Semaphores and To
| Mock a Mockingbird. These are so fun and easy to read.
| cinntaile wrote:
| Those are completely different books than what the blog post
| focuses on. Yours are solely focused on learning tech/maths.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| I have the same kind of problem. It has gotten to the point
| that I couldn't even read sentences that make more than two
| statements.
|
| What helped me to go back on track was reading novels and
| constantly asking myself: did I understand the last sentences
| that I've just read?
| criddell wrote:
| I love William Gibson novels, but I have to read them twice.
| The first time I'm too confused. Only on the second pass do
| they make much sense to me.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Don't blame yourself if a book is verbose and tedious. Most
| books (and youtube videos) are 10% information and 90% padding.
| aesyondu wrote:
| Same. What I did was to limit (minimum and maximum) myself to 1
| chapter/section per day of a singular book that I decided to
| focus on. That way it becomes a habit.
|
| Minimum means that I need to finish it that day no matter what.
|
| I put a maximum because I found through trial and error that if
| I push myself too hard, even if a topic is interesting, I burn
| out quickly and procrastinate, sometimes for months, before
| continuing reading said book. And that is worst case scenario
| for me.
| pvarangot wrote:
| I tend to gravitate to pen and paper when I'm not zoning into a
| book and either draw charts on a notebook or write small notes
| into post-its I stick to the book.
| archsurface wrote:
| I suspect you didn't look at the article - I was caught off
| guard, they're not technical. It's not a list I would go near.
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