Passionate Programmer book review

Sir, I am a beginner to python and programming. I started with the C++

and found it hard so one day via google I found your perfect tutorial

“A byte of Python”. I read the whole tutorial in one day because it is

so interesting and helpful. Sir, I have created the script to backup

files from directory as you mentioned. Please see the script once and

tell me if I have chances in programming career. Sir I am final B.tech

student and I love programming. But I was rejected by every company

during campus placement because of my poor communication skills and

due to this my confidence level is very low. Sir I have also created a

web based application using PHP, MySQL and Kannel on Debian based

server for intra-college communication. Sir, I am regular reader of

your blog and I respect what you are doing to help freshers like me.

Sir I would like to know if you have any advice for me.

I want to thank you about this great book ;-). I am a 20-years-old

student in computer science from Bulgaria and i found this book very

interesting and helpful. I’ve been programming in python for half a

month. I had little experience in C from the university and I wanted

to learn a high level language with simple syntax like Python and then

learn C++ and start writing useful programs. I send you a solution of

the problem in the end of the book that is just a demo version. Can

you give me a hint what i got to improve to make the address book

program better and give me the source code of your solution? I really

want to become a programmer so any advices especially from a man with

your knowledge would be highly appreciated! Thanks.

4. Be the worst

Legendary jazz guitarist Pat Metheny has a stock piece of advice for young musicians, which is “Always be the worst guy in every band you’re in.” Being the worst guy in the band means always playing with people who are better than you. Being the worst guy/gal on the team has the same effect as being the worst guy in the band. You find that you’re unexplainably smarter. You even speak and write more intelligently. Your code and designs get more elegant, and you find that you’re able to solve hard problems with increasingly creative solutions.

6. Don’t listen to your parents

I remember talking to a friend about potentially moving out of this

company, and he said, “Is it your destiny to work at $big

company for

the rest of your life?”

Hell no it wasn’t!_ So, I quickly found

another job and left.

This movement marked the clear beginning of a nonlinear jump in my

success in the software industry. I saw new domains, I worked on

harder problems, and I was rewarded more heavily than ever before. It

was scary at times, but when I decided to be less fear-driven and

conservative in my career choice, the shape and tone of my career – my

life – changed for the better.

15. Practice, practice, practice

When you practice music, it

shouldn’t

sound good. If you always

sound good during practice sessions, it means you’re not stretching

your limits. That’s what practice is for. The same is true in sports.

Athletes push themselves to the limit during workouts so they can

expand

those limits for real performances. They let the ugliness

happen behind closed doors – not when they’re actually working.

Our industry tends to practice on the job. Can you imagine a

professional musician getting onstage and replicating the gibberish

from my university’s practice rooms? It wouldn’t be tolerated.

Musicians are paid to

perform

in public – not to practice. As an

industry, we need to make time for practice.

Practicing may include learning more about your programming

environment (APIs, libraries, methodologies, etc.), sight reading

(reading new pieces of open source code to improve your ability to

read and understand code), improvisation (introduce new constraints in

small projects to improve your thinking abilities) and so on. [paraphrased]

32. Say it, Do it, Show it

You should start communicating your plans to your management. The best

time to start communicating the plans is after you have executed at

least one cycle of the plan. And – this is an important point – start

doing it before they ask you to do it. No manager in his or her right

mind would be unhappy to receive a

succinct

weekly e-mail from an

employee stating what was accomplished in the past week and what they

plan to do in the next. Receiving this kind of regular message

unsolicited is a manager’s dream.

Start by communicating week by week. When you’ve gotten comfortable

with this process, start working in your thirty, sixty, and

ninety-day plans. On the longer views, stick to high-level, impactful

progress you plan to make on projects or systems you maintain. Always

state these long-term plans as proposals to your manager, and ask for

feedback.

The most critical factor to keep in mind with everything that goes

onto a plan is that it should always be accounted for later. Every

item must be either visibly completed, delayed, removed, or replaced.

No items should go unaccounted for. If items show up on a plan and are

never mentioned again, people will stop trusting your plans, and the

plans and you will counteract the effectiveness of planning. Even if

the outcome is

bad

, you should communicate it as such. We all make

mistakes. The way to differentiate yourself is to address your

mistakes or inabilities publicly and ask for help resolving them.

Consistently tracing tasks on a plan will create the deserved

impression that no important work is getting lost in the mix.

43. Making the Hang

Speaking for myself (and extrapolating from there), the most serious

barrier between us mortals and the people we admire is our own fear.

Associating with smart, well-connected people who can teach you things

or help you find work is possibly the best way to improve yourself,

but a lot of us are afraid to try. Being part of a tight-knit

professional community is how musicians, artists, and other

craftspeople have stayed strong and evolved their respective artforms

for years. The gurus are the supernodes in the social and professional

network. All it takes to make the connection is a little less

humility.

Of course, you don’t want to just randomly start babbling at these

people. You’ll obviously want to seek out the ones with which you have

something in common. Perhaps you read an article that someone wrote

that was influential. You could show them work you’ve done as a result

and get their input. Or, maybe you’ve created a software interface to

a system that someone created. That’s a great and legitimate way to

make the connection with someone.

44. Already Obsolete

You have to start by realizing that even if you’re on the bleeding

edge of today’s wave, you’re already probably behind on the next one.

Timing being everything, start thinking

ahead

with your study. What

will be possible in two years that isn’t possible now? What if disk

space were so cheap it was practically free? What if processors were

two times faster? What would we not have to worry about optimizing

for? How might these advances change what’s going to hit?

Yes, it’s a bit of a gamble. But, it’s a game that you will

definitely

lose if you don’t play. The worst case is that you’ve

learned something enriching that isn’t directly applicable to your job

in two years. So, you’re still better off looking ahead and taking a

gamble like this. The best case is that you remain ahead of the curve

and can continue to be an expert in leading-edge technologies.

Looking ahead and being explicit about your skill development can mean

the difference between being blind or visionary.

51. Avoid Waterfall Career Planning

The important thing to realize is that change is not only possible in

your career but

necessary

. As a software developer, you would never

want to pour yourself into developing something your client doesn’t

want. Agile methodologies help prevent you from doing so. The same is

true of your career. Set big goals, but make constant corrections

along the way. Learn from the experience, and change the goals as you

go. Ultimately, a happy customer is what we all want (especially when,

as we plan our careers, we are our own customers) – not a completed

requirement.