The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life) 1st Edition, Kindle Edition

by Chad Fowler (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

Part of: Pragmatic Life (3 Books)

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ISBN-13: 978-1934356340

ISBN-10: 1934356344

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Success in today's IT environment requires you to view your career as a business endeavor. In this book, you'll learn how to become an entrepreneur, driving your career in the direction of your choosing. You'll learn how to build your software development career step by step, following the same path that you would follow if you were building, marketing, and selling a product. After all, your skills themselves are a product.

The choices you make about which technologies to focus on and which business domains to master have at least as much impact on your success as your technical knowledge itself--don't let those choices be accidental. We'll walk through all aspects of the decision-making process, so you can ensure that you're investing your time and energy in the right areas.

You'll develop a structured plan for keeping your mind engaged and your skills fresh. You'll learn how to assess your skills in terms of where they fit on the value chain, driving you away from commodity skills and toward those that are in high demand. Through a mix of high-level, thought-provoking essays and tactical "Act on It" sections, you will come away with concrete plans you can put into action immediately. You'll also get a chance to read the perspectives of several highly successful members of our industry from a variety of career paths.

As with any product or service, if nobody knows what you're selling, nobody will buy. We'll walk through the often-neglected world of marketing, and you'll create a plan to market yourself both inside your company and to the industry in general.

Above all, you'll see how you can set the direction of your career, leading to a more fulfilling and remarkable professional life.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

""Chad Fowler presents a set of no-nonsense heuristics, disciplines, and attitudes that will teach you how to respect and love your profession--and be great at it."" - Bob Martin, President Object Mentor, Inc.

""This book is solid GOLD! There may be hope for our "unprofession" after all! More power to you!"" - Bruce Langenbach, Independent Agile Software Entrepreneur and Passionate IT Consultant
--This text refers to the paperback edition.

About the Author

Chad Fowler is co-director of Ruby Central, Inc., and remains an active, driving force in the Ruby community.

--This text refers to the paperback edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00AYQNR5U
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1st edition (May 28, 2009)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 28, 2009
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1076 KB
Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 182 pages
Lending ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled

Best Sellers Rank: #494,636 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews:
214 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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William P RossTop Contributor: Architecture

Tips On Career Advancement Mostly

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2016

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This book was a mixed bag of discussions about becoming a passionate programmer and advancing your career. Some of the tips were useful, while others were pure anecdotes from the author, not backed by much evidence.

I do not think this book will turn a lazy programmer into a passionate one, and most people reading this book will already have some passion about programming. Some of the tips were on learning new technologies and getting out of your comfort zone. For most people this will be common sense that you should keep up to date.

Unfortunately too many of the tips fall into the categories of stories from the authors personal experience. Tip #5 is "Invest In Your Intelligence". I liked the title a lot of this one. However, the story to back up this tip is how the author was trying to hire from hundreds of candidates in India. He was unsure intially how to seperate the average candidates from the best. So he told his partner to put the requirement of knowing Smalltalk for the job... his partner said: "nobody knows Smalltalk in India." Despite this the requirement for Smalltalk was made, and the author found a great candidate. At the end of the chapter the author even recommends possibly learning Smalltalk.

After this discussion I went on some job boards and looked up if anybody was hiring for Smalltalk, and there is not a single posting anywhere... the language has not been used in industry since the 1990s. Of all the languages he could have recommended this was an extremely poor choice for a career book.

Too many of the tips are semi-inaccurate or irrelevant and the book is heavily focused on the corporate environment. I would have preferred more about the passion side of programming then on what legacy languages the author enjoys.

The bibliography for this book is only 10 other books with titles such as The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh. Hanh is one of my favorite spiritual writers, but this book has no place being in the bibliography for a book on programming. The author should have backed up his opinions by actual data.

16 people found this helpful

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Roger Ngo

Make your career awesome.

Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2017

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I first read Chad Fowler’s Passionate Programmer in 2015 while recovering from a medical procedure. At the time, I was working remotely at my job as a recently turned Project Manager from Software Engineer at a .NET shop.

I seriously thought at the time my career would take me into the “management” track and had assumed that it was what I was meant to do.

Reading the book at the time motivated me to transform myself into becoming a better leader — a less angry, insensitive nerd who couldn’t understand business.

That was then.

Fast forward to 2017, I’ve moved on from being Project Manager at “.NET shop” and back into a Software Engineer at “Big-Co”. Picking up this book again recently has made me reflect on things I had missed the first time around.

A side note: Practicing the ideals presented by this book has allowed me to take what I’ve learned as a Project Manager, and apply it to my Engineering self. The result? A more pleasant and personable person to work with.

Passionate Programmer speaks to me in that we all don’t have to move into some “management” role to grow our career. We can stay as engineers if we want to! We just need to be AWESOME engineers. Awesome is a heavy word… What does awesome mean?

Know your worth.

Be confident and learn to say No if something simply can’t be done. A Yes then to a manager becomes more valuable coming from you. People who can’t admit that they don’t know something tend to be more insecure, anyway.

Do what it takes to be and stay valuable in your realm.

Don’t be afraid to come off as the “worst” one in your group. Take it as a learning experience, and improve!

Take time to learn and reflect deeply on the industry in combination with what you currently know. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Be ever changing in your thoughts and opinions. Things move on fast, so it’s less than ideal to cling onto and not be able to question an idea that was once great, but not so anymore.

Not much bad about this book! It’s a light and casual read and I highly recommend it for any Software Engineer who is just starting out their career at the Junior level, up to the Mid-Level. There are a lot of great takeaways and I think it’s read best once and then revisited again.

Bonus — I thought it was hilarious when Chad Fowler gave a stern warning about not focusing too hard on technology like Java. His reasoning was that Sun Microsystems could go down-under any day. Surprise, surprise.

5 people found this helpful

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Patrick Finnigan

A good motivator for crafting successful programming careers

Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2016

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I enjoyed this book as a motivator for having a standout career in software/programming, even if there's not much novel or interesting advice. The target audience is junior developers and stagnating programmers who have been / are in danger of being laid off, for whom there is some good advice. For a more seasoned developer, the book mainly serves as a guided reflection with areas such as blogging, speaking at conferences, contributing to open source, understanding the business side of your company, and anticipating developments in the industry.

The writing is strongly colored by the author's experience as a jazz musician (before launching into programming as a later career choice), dev manager, and staffer in an IT offshoring gig. There isn't much advice for software engineering or programming itself - it's more about soft skills, standing out, and investing in yourself.

3 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Daniel Bryant

Sage advice for all programmers, and becoming even more relevant with age...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 28, 2013

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I consider this book an essential read for any programmer/developer who is serious about his/her craft. As other reviewers have noted, it does focus on more of the 'soft skills' than other tech books I have recommended below, but this is a very important topic, and one that (in my experience as a technical lead) is often under-valued by programmers.

With the rise of Agile methodologies, DevOps and 'polyglot' programming/persistence the people who turn business dreams into reality (programmers/developers) are increasingly expected to work across the entire technology stack. Not only does this bring new challenges (what and how to learn about the options available), but it also moves the developer closer to the requirements gathering process and ultimately the end users. Combine this with the fact that even as a permanent employee you can expect to find yourself working for multiple employers over your career, it really does make career planning and investing in your skills a no-brainer.

I can almost guarantee this book will get you thinking about choices you are making within your career, and it covers topics as diverse as how to choose which technologies to learn, the process of learning technologies and your craft, how to interact with the business and end users, how to market yourself to employers, and how to prevent inertia from affecting your career.

I can't stress enough the value of the personal/career reflection process that this book will generate for you. The cost of the book alone can easily be justified by the potential extra earning you will make in the future, and not only can you make more money, but you'll have fun doing it (which arguably is even more important) .

If you consider yourself a developer entrepreneur then I would also recommend reading The Lean Startup: How Constant Innovation Creates Radically Successful Businesses (for thoughts on validated learning, scientific experimentation, and iterative product releases) ReWork: Change the Way You Work Forever (for advice on how to think differently about developing technical products/service) and Ignore Everybody (for fun recommendations on how to explore and engage your creativity).

If you are more of a career developer then I would recommend The Pragmatic Programmer (for advice on how to become the best developer you can be), Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship (Robert C. Martin) and Code Complete 2nd Edition Book and Online Course Bundle (for essential skills in writing good code), and The Clean Coder: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers (Robert C. Martin) (offering essential advice on how to work as a 'professional' within the tech industry).

7 people found this helpful

Dobrica Decebal

Love the layout of the book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 1, 2016

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Love the layout of the book, certainly a good read for someone just starting or searching for guidance in the sea of information of how you should organize yourself as a programmer.

I do believe that this is a must read, but at the same time some advice needs filtering.

Cliente Amazon

Damaged

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2020

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The book arrived a little bit damaged.

C. O'Neil

Recommended

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2014

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This is a really great book. It's easy to read, for a couple of reasons. The writing style is nice (even funny at times), and it's split into lots of little small chapters that are really easy to digest on a short sittings. Each chapter offers good practical advice and inspiration for your career as a developer. Recommended.

Rabie

good story and great tips

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 20, 2015

Verified Purchase

slightly out of date but enjoyed every bit of it