My Impressions: The Passionate Programmer

I wanted to learn Ruby on Rails, so I picked up a few books on programming.  This is a non-technical book, unlike other textbooks I have.  Of all the books, this is also probably the only book I understand related to programming, because the other books make me feel like I’m learning Japanese with a Russian textbook – explanations of terminology/concepts are made up of words and concepts I don’t comprehend.

The Passionate Programmer 1st (first) edition Text Only

 

Anyway, I could kind of identify with this book because the author was a musician, and now a programmer.  I used to play a lot of music and never got anywhere.  Now I’m learning programming, and still not getting anywhere.  So I’m like a failed version of the author, basically. 

The format of the book is a consolidation of blog posts.  Many mini-chapters on different topics.  I would categorize the information as kind-of-a-motivational type of book.  But instead of building all these motivating concepts and ideas in the clouds, this book is more of a grounded book.  The book is more of a “stop finding excuses and go for it” type of book.  

One of the topics: The author mentions how parents are more likely to give us fear-based advice (which is uber true in my family): study hard, get a good job, get a steady job, and get a steady paycheck.   The problem with this kind of path is it is aimed for “not losing.”  Two of my best friends and I have had this conversation, one of them recently.  Basically we often fall short of what we set out to do.  Most MBA applicants set out to get into Stanford, Wharton, Harvard…etc.  But many of us fall short.  We may still go to a great school, but it was slightly lower than our original goal (not saying this in a bad way, or that we are now failures).

Perhaps, if we aim to shoot for the stars, maybe we fall short a bit and only settle for Mt. Everest.  It’d be awesome if we got to the stars, but if we fall short and "only" achieved Mt. Everest, it’s still pretty damn good.  The idea is to go for that big hairy audacious goal.   Wouldn’t it suck if you aimed for the ordinary and fell short of that?

I’ve worked in 3 Fortune 500 companies, none as an IT or programmer.  However, a lot of the pointers in this book can still help me become a better marketer, better pricing analyst, or a better supply chain service rep.  This book is not limited in benefiting programmers who want to be better programmers. 

I thought the book had points that were rather original and creative.  There are a lot of “common sense that is not so common” type of topics.  E.g. many people think being a specialist in one field is, knowing only one thing and nothing else.  But what a specialist really should “be” is someone who knows a lot about many things, but is very, very, very good at one thing.  Looking at my work experience, there ARE a lot of specialists that are in the former category, instead of the latter. 

I recommend to give this book a read.  Stop finding excuses to do extraordinary work and become that passionate _________!!