Customer Reviews

The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life)

5 star:		(44)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This book is geared mainly for programmers. But if you are in any field where you work mainly creating things in your head and then placing them in some media (music, programming, design), the principles in this book apply to you. There is no code in this book so it's not strictly a technical book, but a fair amount of the examples only have full impact if you understand at least a little bit of software development.

Over my career as a developer and tech lead, I've found that the most enjoyable and productive people I've worked with follow the principles outlined in this book. Because I thoroughly enjoy what I do, I try to hire like-minded people at our company, and I continuously look for traits like these on people beyond the ability to code in the specific technologies we use.

From learning how to turn a "maintenance" project into an enjoyable one, to being the worst in a great team instead of the best in a mediocre team, to completely automating everything you do so you're cheaper than several outsourced developers and actually learning the business you're developing for so you can "read minds" and are able to improve your business bottom line with your understanding of the problem domain, this book teaches you to become better at what you do in your technical career and to thoroughly enjoy doing it.

Whether you are at the beginning of your career or you feel like "going into management" because you have lost your passion for the craft of development, this book will jolt you back into doing the best work for the software community and improving the world with automation, and "being awesome".

Get this book. You'll be glad you did.

I've written this review 3 times from scratch. Why? Because I was upset that my writing was not eloquent enough to accurately relay how important and useful this book truly is.

If you're considering buying this book, do it now. You can thank me later.

This book teaches you to (among other things):

1. Increase your programming skill and potential by changing your attitude and work habits.
2. Maximize your time and money by treating your programming time like a business.
3. Keep your passion for programming alive, and growing.
4. Advance your career either at your job, or on your own.
5. Manage and run your own company successfully and efficiently.

The author discusses almost every aspect of professional development, and explains what practices are good, what practices are bad, and how you can improve yourself and your skill set in each area.

As both a hobbyist programmer and professional programmer, I felt a strong connection to the author (Chad Fowler). The recurring theme present throughout the book is a sense of self-education and striving to learn everything, which I think many programmers are drawn to. I know that I have an internal drive to continuously improve, learn, and grow--and it is this same drive that Fowler will instill in you while reading through this book.

The book is extremely hard to put down, and I had to force myself to put it down several times (I read through the entire thing in 3 days or so) so that I could reflect on the content of the book and really absorb all of the information and theory behind what Fowler writes.

All in all, this book is a MUST READ for any programmer or entrepreneur who programs either for fun, or professionally. It is filled with excellent advice, and is truly a pleasure to read.

There is no doubt in my mind that I will be reading this book multiple times.

Having just finished the book I have to say that it's already one of my favorite programming books. The pragmatic programmers and Chad thrive on making quality content that is easy to read and contains actionable advice that can be applied immediately with measurable results.

The book is a mix of personal experience, proven methods and musings from a great software developer. The tone is really honest which is one of its strongest points. Having had the pleasure of meeting Chad before, the books feels like a conversation rather than a directive or dogma which is refreshing.

It also has a different emphasis from his first book My Job Went to India. That book seemed more focused on keeping a job, or "making it" while this one is focused on creating your remarkable job. While they are very similar, there is more than enough new content to pick this one up too. It's the kind of book that gets you fired up and inspired to become greater and you can't really put a price on that.

Overall this is a fantastic book and a must have for any developer that is just starting their remarkable career, or for a developer in limbo looking for a catalyst to re-start their new remarkable career!

Thanks Chad and the Pragmatic Programmers for another gem, can't wait to see what's next.

I had to buy this book after reading all of the glowing reviews. It is definitely not a five-star book.

After reading it my impression is that this book is aimed at people who went into programming for reasons other than love, people who are struggling to stay interested and afloat in the industry. Anyone who is truly passionate about programming will have already discovered and acted on the best advice from the book while ignoring the rest.

There is some solid advice here. But it's generally very obvious and generic like "try to see where the industry is going and stay ahead of the curve" or "people will take you more seriously if you can write well".

There is also some bad, or at least impractical, advice. If you tried to follow all of the author's suggestions for "staying ahead of the curve" and "making yourself more marketable" it could easily eat up many hours per week that would probably better be spent on actual programming. Much of his advice also involves, for lack of a better term, sucking up to management.

This book may be useful for someone graduating from college with a computer science degree, but I can't see it being very valuable to anyone with a few years experience.

Just an FYI - the "Career" in the subtitle means "In a Business, as a worker." This is a business self-help book, more like David Allen's "Getting Things Done" or "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" than "The Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" or "Godel, Escher, and Bach." And a business self-help book is a fine thing, but I'm afraid at least one consumer (me) was mislead by the title. One can be passionate about music, and care nothing for getting ahead in the recording industry; one can be passionate about mathematics and care nothing for getting articles published in academic journals; one can be a passionate programmer aside from selling programming.

This definitely doesn't make it a bad book; I'm still looking forward to finishing it at some point, because hey, I've got a job. But it's a business self-help book, about being a better worker. This is the second title the book has had (the first edition was titled "My Job Went to India: 52 Ways to Save Your Job, How to design, debug, and deploy your Pragmatic Career") the first title may have been more representative of the work itself. And I'm off to window-shop "The Art of Computer Programming."

I've just finished reading the Passionate Programmer and found two things particularly interesting:
One, I have been doing most of the suggestions all along without realising or paying particular attention to how/why :-)
Two, The analogies of the musician programmer (which I am) rang very true and highlighted things I had not thought of in this way before.

I highly recommend reading this book if you want practical tips on building and improving your career.
Most chapters have a to-do list of tips that you can incorporate into your life immediately.

I will be going over the book again soon paying particular attention to the "Act on it" tips and incorporating them into my daily work

Chad, Where was this book 20 years ago when I started my software dev career? Where was I? Oh yea, just sitting in my cubicle letting things happen to my career and not taking charge. 20 years ago I wanted to work for Apple. What did I do about it? Nothing, nadda, zip. What did I do after reading this book? Teach myself Obj-C & Cocoa Touch. Now I have one iPhone app (ScoutTrail) in Apple's App Store and another one on the way. Oh yea, what did I do last week? Visited the Cupertino for a job interview. Toughest and most exciting interview of my career.

This book is a very quick, yet dense read that will reignite your love of programming and software (if you had it to begin with). It's not just inspirational, though; there are specific suggestions of concrete things you can do.

DHH (of Rails fame) posted a tweet about this book (he wrote the forward), and I went to check it out. Just looking at the TOC was enough to sell me on the concept. I could not put it down and finished it quite quickly. I had languished for about 5 years in a very boring but easy job programming and had recently started a much more fulfilling job. I was still feeling a bit undirected in my career (as if I lucked out landing this job) and that I hadn't really solved my problem is "what do I do with myself".

I had figured "go into management", but, after reading this, I have fully embraced my love of programming and software development. It gave me great ideas, as well as general inspiration to focus my career and make sure that, no matter where I'm working, the things I do serve my long-term career. It gave me some hope that, as I transition for 20-something whiz-kid to 40-something old-guy, I can have a relevant and fulfilling career without getting stuck in management or, worse, supporting so horrible old system for the rest of my days.

This book is technology agnostic and appropriate for anyone at any skill level and any choice of "preferred technology" (it will even challenge you on that very concept). Some of the analogies are related to the author's musical background and maybe harder to grok for the non-musically inclined (I am so inclined, so these really hit home for me).

HIGHLY recommended.

After spending a couple hours with this book I eventually put it aside in exasperation. Though it does have some helpful tips, it reads too much like an autobiography, and the incessant self-obsession is distracting. Probably the tips in this book helped the author, and probably it will be helpful to some readers, but I found it to be chiefly a book in self-marketing. If you're someone looking to climb the corporate ladder, you're better off getting a book on business or management. If you're truly passionate about programming and technology, get a more technical book instead. I'm giving it three stars, not fewer because it does effectively make the point that sitting around wondering why people don't recognize your talent is probably just a rationale for laziness and self-delusion. Not more because I expect a four-star book to make we want to keep reading to the end, and a five-star book to be truly exceptional. All in all, I'm disappointed that such a highly-rated book turned out to be just a collection of common-sense tips. Not bad, but not a stand-out, life-changing book either.

I'm almost halfway through the book and it's great. The point of this book can be summed up with the quote:

"The truth of the matter is, if you need to 'save' your job, I can't help you. This book isn't about struggling to maintain the level of mediocrity required not to get fired. It's about being awesome. It's about winning. You don't win a race by trying not to loose. And you don't win at life by trying not to suck."

If that doesn't get you blood pumping, then this book isn't for you, and neither is programming.