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The most important point of this book is discussed early on: The defelopers force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs developerrs owned by the company, you own your career!
The book gives you a lot of possibilities to catch up with the current technologies and how you can optimise your learning process to fit all in your available time slot. The part on learning together with the productivity improvements therefore are the ones I liked the most.
The other parts are not bad but more controversial and therefore not softtware silver bullet you simply can adapt. Goodreads helps downooad keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See sort Problem?
Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Soft Skills by John Soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download. SummarySoft Skills: The software developer's life manual is a unique guide, offering techniques and practices for a more satisfying life as a professional software developer.
In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez addresses a wide range of important soft topics, from career and productivity to Download Link : readmeaway. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. More Details Other Editions Soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download Reviews.
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Soft Skillsplease sign up. May I have any free PDF of this book.
I would like to learn as a beginner? Adriana Cervantes This book doesn't teach you any coding, but rather skills to get you there. If you are new to sott, I recommend udemy. Manaul this helps. See 2 questions about Soft Skills….
Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. Skilos filters. Sort order. Feb 18, Sftware Hamacher rated it it was ok. Clearly I'm in the minority, but I don't see how this book has attracted so many four- and five-star ratings here and on Amazon. I purchased it sight-unseen based entirely on the strength of the maunal and dove right in, but soon found myself skimming it, hoping to find the few passages that didn't read like they were copy for a TV infomercial commentator.
It's not that this book is entirely wrong - in fact, there is some actual useful information here. The health and fitness section, for lite Clearly I'm in the minority, but I don't see how this book has attracted so many four- and five-star ratings here and on Amazon. The health and fitness section, for example, is pretty solid and generally avoids recommending fad diets or the like.
But many chapters are almost entirely devoid of actual content, instead sounding very much like the overly-enthusiastic inspirational speaker parodied in so many comedies. I suppose, if you've never spent any time at all introspecting, have never thought about why you do the things you do and how you can manuxl them better, this book might be more useful for you.
View 2 comments. Feb maual, Mateusz Dymczyk rated it did softwaer like it. Unfortunately soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download really remember who recommended me this book because I should never listen to that source again. After checking some пипл, hubsan h501s manual download I decided to give it a try as part of my free audible trial and I must say that was 13 hours of my life wasted. Good thing I listened to most of it while coding or doing some other things.
Still could have listened to some podcasts or other books. John is trying to and is doing a перейти на страницу job at it be pragmatic and not BS you, it's hard to argue with most Unfortunately don't really remember hhe recommended me this amnual because I should never listen to that source again. John is trying to and is doing a good job at it be pragmatic and not BS you, it's hard to argue with most of the stuff written in this book, also. Unfortunately that's because everything in it is so basic.
You know what they say, if you don't want anyone question what you say make it simple or confusing enough. I'm not sure who's the target for this book - people who have soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download acts together definitely don't need it.
Jan 09, awwsalah rated it it was amazing Shelves: computer-programmingcomputer-science. Aug 22, Aurelian rated it did not like it Recommends it for: php programmers.
I soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download skimmed through as reading everything would have been a complete waste of time. Really, источник wasn't anything useful.
Cevelopers should have soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download, a book combining distinct topics such as career, productivity, finances, love?!? Wait, did it had anything on diets? Now, being productive doesn't guarantee you'll be effective. So yeah 1. So developerss. Apr 18, Tim O'Hearn rated it liked it Shelves: books-in An edvelopers project that falls short. I found the first pages to be helpful. In fact, they were a great source of inspiration.
However, as an engineer who is just about to enter the workforce full time, there are certain parts of the book where it is clear that the author is stretching himself too thin while trying to hit his content quotas. Soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download resume writing section is decent food for thought but horrible advice. I've spent a lot of time lurking on LinkedIn and reviewing my peers' resumes An ambitious project that falls short. I've spent a lot sfot time lurking on LinkedIn and reviewing my peers' resumes, and it is obvious when someone has utilized their school's career services or a "professional resume writer" to write their LinkedIn bio or revamp their resume content.
When it isn't the prospective employee's own work, it typically doesn't match their professional identity or lack thereof at all. It makes the person seem fake or, worse, manufactured. The reason I'd advocate for the opposite-a neurotic commitment to one's own resume-is that this will require critical assessment of each line item and will facilitate memorization which, if not done, can lead to a blow up developerz an interview.
Drastically diverging from the typical CareerCup or other commonly accepted resume format is another terrible idea, unless you're a designer.
The reasons why are often covered in interviews with high-profile professionals on finance and CS forums. The financial section is the worst part avantree bluetooth transmitter manual the developres. I admit that there is some sound advice.
I agree with researching salary ranges and the how the author jose manual salary negotiations, though I've never done it myself. Where it falls apart is in soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download options section. He is suggesting you fool around with options as a form of income, and, not only that, sownload dives right softwage some rather complex strategies. The math isn't nearly as simple as he'd have you believe.
And, if the profits really were that consistent, I'm pretty sure you'd have already seen this advice on Reddit manula one of the well-known personal finance blogs. It's not in any way passive income. This advice is given at the cost of glossing over Roth and traditional IRAs as if they dowbload just for those who are self-employed.
I want to say that the real-estate advice is contrived, but it's really not, because the author actually achieved a level of success. Rather, it's overly simplified. The problem is that he touts his accomplishments and gives a super-high-level overview of how profitable it is, and then doesn't spend enough thr talking about the difficulties.
Free money! The advice is nonsensical for expensive areas, where failing to secure a tenant using the leverage he's suggesting will lead to bankruptcy. However, I can imagine it working really well for someone making a big-boy developer salary in the middle of nowhere, like when the author lived in Boise, Idaho.
Managing properties isn't easy either, and hiring a property management company really soft skills the software developers life manual pdf download into the bottom line. The "you might already know Though the author covers debt, assets and liabilities, etc, I think there is a lot more to be said about credit cards and the benefits of using one, building credit, etc.
Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual - - Most frequently terms
Whatever you do, make sure you pick some kind of specialty. The size of your market will determine how specific it is, but try to make it as specific as possible.
For example, a good friend of mine, John Papa, used to specialize in Microsoft Silverlight. What about the Polyglot programmer? Whenever I bring up the topic of specialization, I always encounter at least some resistance. Being a well-rounded and versatile software developer is great.
Being able to use multiple technologies and programs and many differ- ent programming languages can only help your career and can make you a much more valuable software developer than someone who only knows one specific technology or programming language. Even though you may be awesome at all kinds of different technologies and know 50 different programming languages, you still will be better off picking some specialty—even if it changes from time to time.
Learn as much as you can and become as flexible as possible, but also have a specialty that makes you unique and stand out.
If you have to choose between the two options, start with specialization and branch out later. Go from broad to specific and see how specific you can get. Try to get an idea of whether or not further specialization would be benefi- cial to you or limit your choices too much.
Small companies and startups Most small companies are startups, so they have a very distinctive startup mentality. This startup mentality is usually focused on rapid growth and doing everything you can to get the company to a profitable situation or reach some other pressing goal.
If you just want to sit at your desk and write code, you might not like having to set up a build server or help out with test- ing. In a small company, what you do is often much more impactful. This can be both good and bad. This means your great achievements are magnified, but so are your screw-ups.
Small companies also usually offer much less stability than a larger company, but a potentially bigger reward in the long run. A small com- pany is much more likely to go out of business or not be able to make payroll and have to cut staff.
But at the same time, if you can ride out the storms, being one of the first employees at a small company that has grown significantly can be very rewarding.
It can be difficult to reach a director-level position at a big company by climbing the corporate lad- der, but at a small company, your upward mobility is much greater because new employees tend to come in underneath you already. Many developers work for startups taking low salaries and working ridiculous hours hoping to get rich on the stock options if the company goes public or gets acquired, but I consider that a pretty risky bet.
A better reason to work for a small company or startup is because you like that kind of fast- paced exciting environment and you want to be part of building some- thing and watching it grow.
In a medium-size company, roles are usually a bit more defined and you have quite a bit more stability. Your contribu- tions might not cause the company to sink or swim, but they will be noticed. In a medium-size company, slow and steady often wins the race. The fast-paced do-or-die mentality of a startup usually drives decisions quickly and embraces cutting-edge technologies, but most medium-size companies are risk-adverse and move quite a bit slower.
Large companies Large companies are pretty interesting. Each large company is very different from another. Large companies usually have very deep com- pany cultures that permeate every aspect of the company.
When you interview for a large company, you usually go through a series of inter- views and follow a very formal process. Cowboys and renegades are usually not welcome in the corporate culture. When I worked for a fortune com- pany, I had many different training opportunities and just about every software product at my disposal. Many large companies offer career guidance to help you grow and learn within their organization.
You also may get the chance to work on some cool stuff. But for many large companies, technological innovations are common. You might not be able to have a noticeable impact on one of these large-scale initiatives, but you could be part of a team that brings something truly remarkable to the market.
This kind of autonomy can be put to good use, though. A final note about large companies: politics. Large companies usually have complex political systems that can rival large governments. Table 8. These companies are much more likely to have loose soft- ware development practices.
On the other hand, companies whose livelihood is based on developing software are much more likely to put a high value on the software developers they hire. The difference between these two types of companies becomes very apparent when dealing with Agile software development methodolo- gies. Choose carefully These are just some general guidelines about the different kinds of companies you might work for as a software developer, but every com- pany is different.
What company size matches your ideal working environment? Year after year they have the same exact job and job title. I wonder if they ever even get a raise. Do you know someone like that? Taking responsibility The most important thing you can do to go up in the ranks at any com- pany is to take on more responsibility.
The right choice—at least in the long term—is almost always more responsibility. Money always catches up to responsibility. What can you do to gain it yourself? Sometimes you have to go out and look for opportunities where you can take charge of an initiative or head up a project. There is almost always some neglected area of business that you can find to con- tribute your talents to—you just might have to dig to find it. One of the best places to search is in areas that no one else wants to get involved in.
But if you can turn those swamplands into fertile ground, you can really show your value. Another way to indirectly take on responsibility is to become a mentor for others on your team. Volunteer to help the new person get up to speed. Always offer help to anyone who needs it. Eventually this reputation is likely to land you a team-lead position or management position, if you want to go that route. One of the first things I did whenever I started a new job was to start keeping a daily account of where I spent my time and what I accom- plished during the day.
It was a great way to gain visibility and it often appeared that I was much more productive than my peers simply because my manager was hearing about all the work I was doing, but not much about the work other developers were doing. Not only was this weekly report valuable for my visibility, but it was also an excellent resource for myself when review time came around.
I could go back through my weekly reports and pick out my key accom- plishments for the year. When it came time to fill out reviews, I knew exactly what I had accomplished during the year and I had dates to prove it. One of the best ways is to offer to give presentations on some topic or problem your team is facing. Pick a topic you can present on and offer to present that topic to your team. You can even offer to do it as a lunch-and-learn where you present an educational topic during lunch instead of on company time.
This is a great way to gain visibility and show how knowledgeable you are in a particular area. Make sure you are seen often. You can, of course, take traditional higher-education courses—espe- cially if your company will pay you to get a degree—but there are many alternative ways to educate yourself that can pay off in the future.
You should always be learning something new or advancing your skills in some way. Sign up for training courses or seek out certifi- cations that will show that you are committed to continually improving. At one point, early in my career, I felt like my upward mobility was somewhat limited, so I decided to start getting Microsoft certifications. I studied hard and took all the tests I needed to get one of the top-level Microsoft certifications.
The extra effort showed my manager that I was serious about advancing my career and opportunities were quickly opened for me. Take some time to learn about leadership, management, and business if you have your sights set on higher-level and possibly executive positions. People like that are a dime a dozen. Instead, be the person who always has a solution to a problem and is able to execute that solu- tion to get results. Building a reputation for being that kind of person is a sure way to get promoted.
What do you do then? What about politics? What is one concrete action you can take in the next week to become more visible? Decide what would be the most valu- able thing to educate yourself on and create a plan to get that education over the next year. If we are struggling with fear, self-sabotage, procrastination, self-doubt, etc.
Amateurs don't show up. Amateurs crap out. Amateurs let adversity defeat them. The pro thinks differently. Being a professional is all about showing up, doing your work, and not letting adversity defeat you. Being a professional requires you to over- come your vices so that you can sit down and produce the best work pos- sible.
As a software developer, professionalism will be one of your greatest assets. Simply put, a professional is someone who takes their responsibilities and career seriously and is willing to make the tough choices that have to be made—often at their own expense—for the purpose of doing what they know is right. How do you react in this situation?
Can you stand up and do what is right, even if it may end up costing you your job? What principles do you stand for? What quality bar do you personally set for your work? A professional is what we should all strive to be. A professional is someone who may not have all the answers, but thor- oughly studies their craft and seeks to hone their skills. Perhaps most importantly, a professional is consistent—stable.
A pro- fessional has a high-quality standard for their work and you can expect a professional to adhere to it each and every day. Table What is it about you and your work that reeks of amateur, and how do you neutralize the odor? It starts with habits. Habits are an essential part of becoming a profes- sional, because a large portion of what we do every day is completely habitual. We get up, we go to work, and we perform our daily routines each and every day, mostly without thinking about it.
If you want to change your life, you need to start with changing your habits. But if you want to become a professional, you need to develop the hab- its of a professional. At one time when I was working on a team follow- ing the Scrum process, where we would have a daily stand-up meeting stating what we had done, what we had planned to do, and what was impeding us, there was one developer in particular who always had a written version of exactly what he was going to say.
Every single day before the Scrum meeting he would prepare his statement, instead of coming up with it during the meeting like most of us did. This is the kind of habit a professional develops.
Another strong habit to develop as a professional is time-management skills. How good are you at managing your time right now?
Do you have a good handle on how long routine tasks will take? Get in the habit of effectively managing your time by planning out your day in www.
A professional knows what work must be done each day and roughly how long it will take to do the work. These are just two examples of the kinds of habits that are important to develop as a professional software developer.
If you want to be a professional, you need to be able to make the correct choices in both of these cases. Often the technical challenges you face are more objective. There are right ways to solve technical problems. But the ethical challenges can be much more difficult. One of the biggest ethical challenges software developers face is that of going forward with decisions they know are correct and in the best interest of their client even if making those decisions could jeopardize their own well-being or stability.
In this article, Bob com- pares a software developer to a doctor. He talks about how absurd it would be for a patient to tell a doctor how to do their job. In his exam- ple, a patient tells the doctor that his arm hurts and that he needs to cut it off. It might even mean getting fired, but sometimes www.
In the short term, it may be painful, but consistently choosing to do the thing you know is right over the course of your career is much more likely to pay off than the alternative—plus you can sleep better at night. Sometimes professionals have to make tough decisions about the prior- ities of what they work on. A professional assesses the work that has to be done, prioritizes it, and gets to work. My advice in this situation is to go ahead and do what you need to do to get by, but never let yourself get in this kind of situation again.
When it comes down to it, you have to do what you have to do, but always try to put yourself in positions where you have the upper hand or are at least on equal footing, whenever possible. Seeking quality and self-improvement As a professional you must strive to constantly improve and increase the quality of the work you produce.
The big mistake many software developers make is to lower their standards when they seem out of reach instead of seeking to improve themselves to rise up to meet the challenge.
A real professional has high-quality standards for all areas of his or her work, because a professional knows that, as T. A professional has a good, accurate, and realistic self-assessment of their own abilities—and weaknesses. The way a professional meets the high-quality expectations they have is by continuous self-improvement.
If you want to be a professional, you need to dedicate yourself to always improving your skills and learning more about your craft. Make sure that you have an education plan that you can follow to expand your skills and learn new things that will help you do a better job. If so, why? If not, why not? Observe your day and try to identify as many habits as possible. List your habits in two categories, good and bad.
Now identify some good habits you need to develop. Come up with a plan for developing those hab- its. How would you react? I felt trapped working in the corporate world, and I knew that I could do better if I could just get out on my own. Now, you may not want to work for yourself.
You may want to continue to enjoy the benefits of being an employee—and there is nothing wrong with that. Going about things the smart way Want to know the easy way to quit your job and work for yourself? Good luck. This might not be the smartest way to go about gaining your freedom, though. You might be able to quit your day job with just a few months of savings, lacking a solid plan, and jump right into the ocean of entrepreneurship or indepen- dent consulting and make it, but is it worth taking the risk?
Usually, after just a few months, there is blood everywhere. Checking accounts are bleeding, credit cards are hemor- rhaging, and what seemed wonderful and beautiful suddenly got extremely violent.
You have to figure out a way to build up enough side income to support yourself while you get the new thing working. But eventually I got smarter.
I figured out that the only way I was really going to be able to make a jump was to figure out how to start building my new business on the side and make it successful enough to support me while I made the transition, even if it meant a big pay cut. Before you think about quitting your job you need have a solid plan in place. My advice in this situation is to start working really hard and develop some good pro- ductivity habits to give yourself the best chance of success.
You should also cut as many expenses as possible. That probably means getting rid of cable. You want to give yourself as much runway as possible. Think carefully about how long you can survive and what you can do to stretch that time out. You can always try again later. Just make sure not to jeopardize your whole future by taking out massive credit card debt, mortgaging your house, or borrowing money from friends and family.
The first two times I tried to make it on my own, I didn't do things the smart way and I had to go crawling back to regular employment. Preparing to work for yourself Working for yourself is harder than you thought—probably much harder. Many aspiring entrepreneurs have no idea how diffi- cult it can be to run a business and how much extra work is involved to deal with all the overhead and nondevelopment aspects of running your operation.
A majority of new businesses do. It might take you more than a few tries to create a successful business that can sustain you.
Would you rather spend years saving up enough money to take one shot at it and hope that it pans out, or have enough runway to give several tries until you finally get something that sticks?
How much do you really work? I was working 8- to hour days at my regular job every single week, so why was it suddenly so hard to sit down and work 8 hours when I was working for myself? And why was I getting way less than 8 hours of work done in that time? I discovered the answer to this question by carefully measuring my time. I set up a mechanism to log and track my hours during the day so that I could see where my time was going.
When I did this, I found that I was usually getting only around 4 hours of actual work done during a day. Here I was working harder than ever, but I was producing only half of my potential capac- ity each day. I immediately began to wonder how much work I was actually getting done during a day at my regular job, before I quit.
I thought back through my typical working day and I tried to figure out how I was spending my time. Then I subtracted from those eight hours about one hour a day for work- and nonwork-related socialization. We all goof off from time to time and check our Facebook messages, answer personal emails, and so on. There is no sense denying it and it probably adds up to about an hour each day.
So, what does that leave me with? Four hours. Out of an eight-hour day at work, most of us probably only work about four hours. How hard do we work during those four hours? I like to think of it this way. Imagine the difference between jogging down the street and running for your life because a man-eating lion is chasing you. Taking that into account, we could probably estimate that, on average, we only work half as hard when working for someone else. What I came to realize was that in a typical day of work at my regular job, I might have been just putting in the equivalent of 2 hours of real, hard, produc- tive work.
And sometimes I stayed late and worked 10 hours to do it. What is my point in telling you this? While it may be true that you may be www. Passion tends to fizzle out over time and is somewhat fickle. Because I was working three to four hours each evening on my side business while holding down my regular job, I thought I could work just eight hours a day and now get twice as much work done.
I was completely wrong and it almost caused me to become dis- couraged and give up. At your current job, you can start tracking your time during the day and see if you can get to the point of producing six hours of productive work consistently.
Also, working on your side job during the evening will prepare you for what it will be like to spend a full eight or more hours working on it each day.
You want to be independent. Joe has been a software developer for about ten years. He likes his job, but he really wants to become a freelancer and work for himself. He likes the idea of having the flexibility and freedom of choosing his cli- ents and deciding what to work on and when.
Now, Joe has been thinking about making the jump for quite a while. The first thing Joe did was to start cutting his monthly expenses and stashing away cash.
Joe also started devoting about 15 hours each week to freelancing while he still kept his regular job. He spends about the first 2 hours of each day doing freelance work. He spends 5 hours each week working on getting new business and advertising, and 10 hours doing billable work. When that day comes, Joe hands in his two- week notice and begins his dream. Before you start a side project that might eventually become a full-time job for you, make sure you check to see what you agreed to when you took your current position.
If the wording of your employment agreement says anything about the company own- ing what you produced, you might want to check with a legal professional to find out how to properly handle that situation. Still, in this case you want to tread carefully. You might be surprised to find out how high it is right now. Get an idea of how you're spending your time currently each day. Now, figure out how much of that time is actual pro- ductive time where you're actually doing real hard productive work—you might be surprised by the results.
For many software developers the idea of becoming a freelancer is very appealing, but it can be difficult to get started. For much of my career, when I was working as an employee, I dreamed of being a freelancer, but I struggled with not knowing how to make the transition. Getting started If you read the last chapter on quitting your job, you know that I recom- mend starting a side business before trying to start a new business full- time.
This especially applies to freelancing, because it can be very difficult to get started freelancing and get a steady stream of business.
One of the greatest fears of freelance developers is that they will not have work and so they will not get paid. The only way to get to this point is to build up your business over time. You need to have existing long-term clients that you can count on for future business and you need a steady stream of new clients coming in the door.
You have to cultivate these two situations over time. Ask someone you know How do you get started? How do you actually get your first client? The best way to get a client is through someone you already know. Someone you already know is more likely to trust you, especially start- ing out. Specialization will help greatly here. Check out chapter 7 for more on that. Make a list of all the people you know who would be potentially be interested in your services and email them personally. Tell them exactly what you can do for them and why they should hire you to do the work.
The more prospects you have, the more likely you are to get work. Getting work is mostly a numbers game. Over time this diligence will pay off. It will be much more difficult to fill up 40 hours of work a week than it will be to fill up 10 or What you really want to focus on is what is called inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is basically getting potential clients to come to you instead of you going out to find them.
The primary way you do this is by offering something of value for free. I harp on this quite a bit, but most developers should have a blog.
A blog is an excellent way to do inbound marketing, because you can publish articles on your blog that get people to go there and read your content. Once potential clients are on your blog reading your content, you can try to directly convert them to customers by offering your con- sulting services at the end of your blog post or through some naviga- tion on your site, or you can offer them something else of value in exchange for their email list.
Email marketing is one of the best and most effective ways to market your products or services. Once you have a list of people who are inter- ested in what you have to offer, you can slowly send them more infor- mation about you and what you can do for them and eventually convert them to customers.
The only problem with inbound marketing is that it can take some time to start working. You have to have enough content out there to attract www. This is one of the most difficult problems, besides acquiring clients, that freelancers face. Most freelancers greatly underestimate both the amount they can charge a client and the amount they need to charge a client. Let me explain. Post a Review. You can write a book review and share your experiences.
Other readers will always be interested in your opinion of the books you've read. Whether you've loved the book or not, if you give your honest and detailed thoughts then people will find new books that are right for them. Baker Academic. Joel B. Green , Jacqueline E. The Fitness section was also great, good solid advice contained therein. There are also two more appendix sections on nutrition and fitness that are phenomenal, and they alone were better than the entirety of O'Reilly's Fitness for Geeks book.
The final section, "Spirit" is largely useless. Lots of froo-froo garbage and nonsense, I found myself skimming a lot of it because I was hurting myself rolling my eyes. Overall, the book is pretty well-written and conversational.
Information is pared down into consumable chunks, and each chapter is generally only a few pages long so it's easy to pick up, read a little, and put back down. Later, on page , the author includes a few pictures of himself from his male-modeling days and confirms, yep, you're reading the words of a douchebag. There's a large amount of stuff that should probably be taken with a grain of salt, especially regarding finances because the author seems to think he's in a position to give financial advice due to "retiring" at 33 years old, but includes a section on how he accomplished this that basically boils down to "I got really really lucky" and even includes a bit of "I'm a Christian and I was rewarded for my tithing".
He also rented gumball machines for a while. Er, what? In any case, I highly recommend this book to software developers, particularly the section on Finances and, if you've never seen it in another book, the sections on Career and Marketing Yourself. Mar 27, Philipp rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction , programming , on-living.
Alternative title: How I got where I am Alternative alternative title: How to be a functioning adult, for programmers This has very little to do with "soft skills" the way I'm used to the term. In my head, soft skills means social skills, and I thought I'd get something like Emotional Intelligence. The chapters are very uneven, there's useful stuff on how to plan work, which techniques to use, how to make long-term plans for your programming career, then less interesting chapters - for example, how to handle your finances is a bit too US-specific - he focuses on real estate investment, I can't even buy a house in Australia; or chapters on fitness, etc.
I'm aware I'm not the target audience I earn less than the average US programmer, and when I look at house prices I laughcry , but I think young programmers just towards the end of their studies would benefit greatly from some of the advice here. Jan 27, Adrian Sanchez rated it it was amazing. I got this book at a time when I felt like my software development career has started to become boring.
A time when I felt unmotivated. A time when I wasn't learning new things Soft Skills was the perfect book that I needed. The book is full of practical advice that will help you improve your overall life as a software developer. It covers a very broad range of topics that are I got this book at a time when I felt like my software development career has started to become boring.
It covers a very broad range of topics that are of interest to software developers and the author did a great job of discussing those topics in a very condensed, but very concise manner. The book instilled in me a sense of motivation and a sense of urgency for me to start making personal changes in order to make my job, my career, and my life more fulfilling and rewarding.
From honing my skills as a developer, to putting effort to perform better at my job, to start paying attention to my finances, and to try and become healthier. This book definitely pushed me to take a significant step in the right direction. Jan 31, An Nguyen rated it it was ok. The author seems like a nice person but a lot of his credentials seem questionable at best. He has a lot of things to brag about throughout the course of the book but it's hard to believe a lot of the time.
He doesn't come across as an expert at all. The book covers such a wide range of advice and topics with such little depth that there is hardly any useful or practical information that can be scavenged from it. In fact, I feel like a lot of the advice given is just parroted from other sources the author isn't citing.
The author just doesn't come across as an authoritative source of information. Many important topics are skimmed across and add zero value to the book at all. This feels like one of those books where the author wrote out the table of contents first and then just hammered them away one by one for completion's sake. However, the topic of the book is an extremely interesting one and a niche that deserves to be explored more in-depth by someone more qualified.
Jun 30, Mohammad Khatib rated it it was amazing. Enjoyed the amount of diverse topics this book had, from different career paths you can choose as a programmer to negotiating your salary to investing. It really gives you a bird's-eye view of your past, current and future career moves and what you could have done better and what you could do better in in the future. I wish I've read this earlier in my career, though I wouldn't be sure if I would relate to it as much as now, it felt that I am reading it at the right time, but a lot of the detail Enjoyed the amount of diverse topics this book had, from different career paths you can choose as a programmer to negotiating your salary to investing.
I wish I've read this earlier in my career, though I wouldn't be sure if I would relate to it as much as now, it felt that I am reading it at the right time, but a lot of the details I wished I've read more about early on. We tend to ignore these soft skills and focus on what we do best and are comfortable with, coding. I came to realize that these soft skills are as important as any other technical skills you might posses and develop.
Really enjoyed the books concise and small chapters, it gave me an achievable goal to everyday read 5 chapters every day. I don't understand why. Honestly, if you never ever read anything about good lifestyle, self-improvement, management, finances, etc For me, it was very information sparse material many words, little substance. Each chapter has a summary, introduction and then another summary with a generally vague text in the middle. After reading it actually listening to the audio-book which is in thi TL;DR: This book was recommended in a podcast I listen to.
After reading it actually listening to the audio-book which is in this case a superior version , I do understand how the author was able to write one chapter per day.
I don't even understand how the chosen topics are particularly important for software developers. Your mileage my vary but most probably that's not the book you want to read. If you struggle with advancing your career, get yourself a book on advancing your career. If you struggle with personal finance, get yourself a book on personal finance. If you struggle with staying fit, get yourself a book on fitness. This book tries to cover all those topics and many more but all of them are covered in too general, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate fashion.
Also, this book does not really have much of Your mileage my vary but most probably that's not the book you want to read. Also, this book does not really have much of a developer-specific advices. Every second chapter starts with "You might wonder why I decided to put this chapter in this book Very US-specific.
There are some good advice, but not everything could be adapted as-is. Feb 01, Abdul-Vakhab Emiev rated it really liked it.
The book is pretty good introductory to almost every single dimension of life. The truth is that John's tempting to cover everything but it's hard to do so. But the book successfully creates the anchors which you can stick with your further upgrowth. I found this book useful, especially the section on productivity. Jan 02, Johnny rated it it was amazing. Soft Skills by John Z. Sonmez offers a holistic approach on all the things you should know as a developer.
Starting with your career, how to marketing yourself, how to improve your productivity and faster learning over to your spirit, your finances and your personal fitness. All that is covered on pages and will help you to find your better self. You will have to put in a lot of time and effort. Luckily John shows how you easily can get the needed time.
The 10 point learning plan is something I will put in action immediately. In this field I have room for improvements and who knows if all it takes is a bit more playing with technology. I already follow a productivity plan similar to the one of John and can therefore recommend to adapt such a plan for yourself.
Jan 17, Jason Lowenthal rated it it was amazing. I find this book both informative and direct with the lessons it teaches. Unfortunately, due to an educational background that I'm lucky enough to possess, most of the lessons taught in this book are only reminders and reflection points for me. I got a computer science degree and a business degree - which is pretty much a good succinct synopsis of this book.
Most of the programmers I know didn't take the time to take marketing classes, or health classes, or investing classes while in college. Thi I find this book both informative and direct with the lessons it teaches.
This book targets all of those programmers directly. It teaches the fundamentals of money management, wise investing, self-marketing, and all of the other critical characteristics someone needs no matter what field they might find themselves working in.
I definitely recommend this book's lessons and material for anyone looking to 'get ahead' in their careers. The advice garnered certainly offers a powerful punch. Just make sure to keep it on your bookshelf and remind yourself of its powerful teachings a couple of times a year. It's not just a read it and forget it kind of book - it really is a good tool as a high-level reference for a broad range of not-so-technical subjects.
Apr 19, Jan Holcapek rated it really liked it Shelves: own , paperback. Skip to content. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.
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