marksutherland reviewed The Passionate Programmer by Chad Fowler (Pragmatic life)
Review of 'The Passionate Programmer' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
This book is a great example of the state of most non-technical programming writing, in that it mostly exists to stroke the author's ego and give a pat on the head to his gen-x American colleagues.
In its original form it was a list of tips aimed to help American programmers avoid having their jobs outsourced from under them, written as a series of short blog-style chapters that are not long enough to cover their topic, let alone dive deep enough to provide any insight.
Everything the book looks at is better discussed in other books, such as [b:Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook|8473471|Being Geek The Software Developer's Career Handbook|Michael Lopp|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348343647s/8473471.jpg|13338194] which is a far better software career advice book, and [b:The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master|4099|The Pragmatic Programmer From Journeyman to Master|Andrew Hunt|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386925692s/4099.jpg|7809] from the same publishers which has much more useful technical content.
There's nothing particularly …
This book is a great example of the state of most non-technical programming writing, in that it mostly exists to stroke the author's ego and give a pat on the head to his gen-x American colleagues.
In its original form it was a list of tips aimed to help American programmers avoid having their jobs outsourced from under them, written as a series of short blog-style chapters that are not long enough to cover their topic, let alone dive deep enough to provide any insight.
Everything the book looks at is better discussed in other books, such as [b:Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook|8473471|Being Geek The Software Developer's Career Handbook|Michael Lopp|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348343647s/8473471.jpg|13338194] which is a far better software career advice book, and [b:The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master|4099|The Pragmatic Programmer From Journeyman to Master|Andrew Hunt|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1386925692s/4099.jpg|7809] from the same publishers which has much more useful technical content.
There's nothing particularly terrible about the book, but I can't think of anyone I'd recommend this to who wouldn't be better served by other materials. It's a textbook example of the vacuous echo chamber of modern technology, rehashing concepts that were better covered decades ago with a sprinkling of self-help platitudes and quotes from better authors.
