Coders

Bardzo dobrze napisane, podchodzi do tematu z wielu stron - trochę tłumaczy społeczne uwarunkowania dla przełomu lat 80/90-tych, trochę buduje profil osób związanych z kodowaniem (adekwatny dla mnie, ale dziś już raczej w mniejszości), a przede wszystkim odziera zawód kodera z fałszywego i szkodliwego romantyzmu i zwraca uwagę na liczne problemy branży.

“As the coder Danny Hillis once noted, ‘A few hundred years ago in my native New England, an accurate description of my occupation would have gotten me burned at the stake.”

Aardige kijk op het ontstaan van, en de aard van het vak van programmeur, zeker leuk voor niet-programmeurs. Maar ook voor programmeurs zitten er wel wat juweeltjes in:

“Software firms gave often cultivated an air of sorcery, relying on the inscrutability of their work to baffle and enchant customers, while being in reality nothing more than a creaky pile of PHP scripts”...

A very nice book on different characteristics of past few generation of coders, how they differ, evolved and fit into market. This is very useful to both coders, to form a better self image of themselves and colleagues, and to non-coders, to get a glimpse of it's nuances and complexities.

The real title is “Everything Wrong With Coders.”

I might be biased considering I write code to make a living, but I found this book to be pretty fascinating. I certainly feel a little more validated, as I connected with a lot of the descriptions of programmers in this book. I would definitely recommend this book to people who want to learn more about coding (as opposed to actually learning to code, which is very different).

Fairly boring if you are a coder. I am sure that somehow ironically self-identifies me as a coder.

This book is a look at coders and coding culture and every coder and system-thinker will probably love reading it. Because who doesn't love to hear about being INTJs and the joy of efficiency and the frustrations and patience required when chasing bugs. It definitely gave me the itch to go and automate something. All the analogies were spot on, that for example coders have to build and juggle houses of cards in their head while programming, tracking at all times the complex interdependencies, and therefore hate all interruptions that make those houses collapse.

In interesting point made is that coding is a discipline where self-taught people work alongside computer-science graduates. Some examples are brought up that show that anyone with an aptitude for problem-solving and optimization can learn those skills, even later in life. Yet the culture that hypes the ubernerds and mastercoders (10X) is not that welcoming to women/minorities and anyone who sees coding just as a dayjob. Still miles to go, but at least worldwide statistics show that culture is to blame, and that white North American men are not the genetically chosen masters of the discipline.

Witty. Informative. Intriguing.