The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Expert's Voice) [Paperback]

Christopher Duncan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1590596242 | ISBN-13: 978-1590596241 | Publication Date: January 26, 2006 | Edition: 2nd ed.

Missed deadlines, death marches, unstable releases, continual overtime, and skyrocketing stress levels are legendary in the software development industry. Unlike traditional occupations such as accounting or administration, the software business is populated by programmers who are as creative and passionate about their work as musicians or artists. For most, it is a complete surprise when they enter the business world and find that internal politics, inept management, and unrealistic marketing drive the process, rather than a structured and orderly approach based on technical issues and quality. The average programmer, having the least authority in the management chain of command, feels powerless to change these things, but suffers the consequences. "The Career Programmer" steps through the entire sequence of events, from the decision to create a new software system to the end of the project, and explains how the individual programmer or project manager can work within the existing system to solve specific problems and regain control of the process. Avoiding an academic approach, care is taken to offer proven, practical, hands-on solutions that are designed to work when confronted with the political and chaotic realities of the business environment. Issues are addressed from both the programmer and project manager point of view, and steps are shown from all perspectives, from large-scale teams down to single developer projects. Management will never simply hand over the reins and allow a completely new and unfamiliar approach to be instituted. Realizing this, the reader is shown how to build on small, incremental successes that not only solve the problems at hand, but also work towards a gradual reworking of the development process by showing management a stream of results to which they can relate. For the individual programmer or project manager, the end result is less overtime, less stress, better quality software, and a more satisfying career.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Pure & Simple, this book is the best one I've read in the past two years. It's simply that brilliant." -- Robert Gelb - VB Rad Home Page --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Author, musician, veteran programmer, and corporate troublemaker Christopher Duncan is president of Show Programming of Atlanta, Inc. Irreverent, passionate, unconventional, and sometimes controversial, his focus has always been less on the academic and more on simply delivering the goods, breaking any rules that happen to be inconvenient at the moment. He can be reached at Chris@ PracticalStrategyConsulting.com

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 2nd ed. edition (January 26, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590596242
• ISBN-13: 978-1590596241
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #950,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Gird yourself for a depressing look at your career!, January 4, 2003

By 

Jed Reynolds (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Paperback)

If you are a programmer who is constantly persuing self-improvement of your software development skills, but is frustrated by your social development environment (i.e. Management), this book is for you. You care enough about yourself to try and fix your troubled environment. After you finish this book, I suggest giving Pete McBreen's <i>Software Craftsmanship</i> a read, and follow that with Alistair Cockburn's <i>Agile Software Development</i>. Duncan's book shows software development as a battleground of politics and ego-tanks-Duncan suggests ways to survive that crazy mess. If you actually want to change the way you develop software, McBreen and Cockburn show you the door.

I finally finished the Career Programmer after putting it down so many months ago because...I found it...depressing. Why? I lived that crazy mess. However, I have a hard time pinning down who his intended audience is--the Sr. Programmer, the middling programmer, the junior programmer? He certainly addresses all of these, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph. I suppose that he's writing to them all, or more appropriately-to the program manager that's been promoted from Sr. Engineer. I guess this because he talks about accurately tracking your activities (a PSP tactic), Managing your Team, and Putting together your Testing Team. This is obviously a mix of topics that's going to apply to a project manager.

Duncan repeatedly puts the onus on the reader to be responsible for these activities because no one else, and certainly not your management will do these things for you. (Depressing.) He compliments this advice with more survivalist wisdom on politics: don't stick your head too high and get fired. Don't lay too low and ignore the politics game and get fired for becoming redundant. Make sure to kiss up and make sure to praise management but suggest ideas on how their protect could be "better" with ideas from the other corner of your mouth at the same time.

This endless list of survival tactics is guidebook material for beginning programmers, but like I said, if he's writing to project managers, it behoves the project manager (or Sr. Programmer) to teach their Jr. programmers these tactics. It would be a very intimidating book to read for the entry level programmer. However, entry level programmers, in my experience, don't read much (they Know How To Program: bring it on!) and it's the team lead programmers who by discovering failure, start reading these books. Thus, this book is yet another depressing account of Thinks You Should Have Known.

Duncan, in his wisdom, points out something that many a programmer has oft reflected on: career path. He doesn't talk about this to much point, but his section on it says: have a thought about what kind of developer you want to be before you jump into the industry and let it mold you into something you regret. How many of us feel molded even now? Too many. I reflect on how a doctor or a lawyer could easily make the same kind of mistake--let their industry whisk them along and wake up to find themselves as a profession in a field they failed to choose.

However, this book is saturated with irony: almost all pointed advice Duncan gives is to subvert the system. Sneak in your testing staff. Sneak in your design time. Lie about what you're doing to give your self time to do things management is too ignorant to approve of. Duncan writes: life is too short to work for clowns, but if you have to pull these stunts to build a development team, to what degree of clown do you stop working for? People concerned about the reality of the software industry should pay attention to the reality presented in Duncan's book.

I think that many of the topics that Duncan raises in his book are artifacts of Scientific Management and Software Engineering. The environments that Duncan describes - offices full of idiotic ego-battles where people talk about producing software - would not exist were Pete McBreen's vision of software development the existing reality (a reality where people cared about getting the work done as it reflects their reputation).

I also find it interesting to note that much of what Duncan writes has been written by Steve McConnell in <i>Rapid Development</i> and <i>Software Project Survival Guide</i>. However, McConnell and Duncan describe something much closer to the Software Engineering environment than what, in my experience, is actually the reallity for smaller application development projects. I had echoed the ideas McConnell promoted for lack of any better writing on software development. However, after reading McBreen and Cockburn's respective works, my views on how to develop applications have radically changed towards the Craftsman approach. McConnell, in <i>After the Goldrush</i> provides many good arguments for the Licensing of Software Engineers, McBreen compliments McConnell's tack that such licensing efforts-are only rarely applicable.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Primer for the Uninitiated, March 5, 2002

By 

Robert S Winter (Norcross, GA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Paperback)

From the very first chapter, I found myself nodding my head in agreement and chuckling about the inane situations Chris has encountered in Corporate America. Although he and I come from different worlds (Chris from software development and me from marketing/sales) his commentaries on the pitfalls, obstacles, and twisted logic of how Corporate America works is insightful and offers valuable tips on how to navigate potentially damaging confrontations.
This is a humorous, down-to-earth, practical guide that can be used by anyone (technical or non-technical) in coping with some truly wierd situations that arise. "The Career Programmer" is a quick read and definately deserves a second reading. If the truth be told, I sped through my first sitting with the book because I wanted to find out what happened to the chihuahua. Well done.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A really good and unique book, April 9, 2002

By 

J. Burton "UK" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Paperback)

...

It's actually quite a depressing read in many ways as it quickly disposes of all the illusions many of us have about our chosen field of work, but it always does so in an amusing and well writen way.

And more importantly it gives solid advise about what to do about it. How to make the company work more for you rather than against you. But always in a professional way, and still in the interests of the company.

It's particularly good as an antidote against all those methodologies which sound great on paper but don't stand a chance of being implemented in most companies.

I've seen plenty of books about how to succeed in management, and sales, and marketing, but never one about how to succeed as a programmer - in the sense of making your life better and more productive, rather than just the technical aspects.

I highly recommend this book.