The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World

Rating:
Summary: So much wasted paper...
Review: One of the other reviews marks this books as "Great no nonsense look at the reality of corporate life" -- and is laughably wrong. It's not a great book due to the overwhelming presence on nonsense that makes me hypothesize that the author was paid by the page. The entire first paragraph on page 131 (opening "Fighting for Quality Assurance") is nonsense about how quality assurance is like socks that go missing in the laundry.

My other leading complaint about this book is that it's about 10 years too late for most "Western" programmers whose only advantage on their Asian replacements is their proximity to the business customers -- that is, the advice to "Get your requirements etched in stone" is most useful when you're 10-12 time zones from your customer and most politically dangerous when you're a mere 10-12 feet.

This might have been an insightful book to read back in college prior to any disillusioning professional experience. But modern corporate software development needs competitive advantage rather than strict adherence to existing practice if it's going to survive in high-cost locations like the USA -- and this book offers no insightful competitive advantages. It just offers spare socks and the watchman's over-anthropomorphized dog.

Rating:
Summary: So much wasted paper...
Review: One of the other reviews marks this books as "Great no nonsense look at the reality of corporate life" -- and is laughably wrong. It's not a great book due to the overwhelming presence on nonsense that makes me hypothesize that the author was paid by the page. The entire first paragraph on page 131 (opening "Fighting for Quality Assurance") is nonsense about how quality assurance is like socks that go missing in the laundry.

My other leading complaint about this book is that it's about 10 years too late for most "Western" programmers whose only advantage on their Asian replacements is their proximity to the business customers -- that is, the advice to "Get your requirements etched in stone" is most useful when you're 10-12 time zones from your customer and most politically dangerous when you're a mere 10-12 feet.

This might have been an insightful book to read back in college prior to any disillusioning professional experience. But modern corporate software development needs competitive advantage rather than strict adherence to existing practice if it's going to survive in high-cost locations like the USA -- and this book offers no insightful competitive advantages. It just offers spare socks and the watchman's over-anthropomorphized dog.

Rating:
Summary: If you're a developer, and you want a life, here's how
Review: Software has a reputation for being difficult to build, rarely working properly, and many abandoned projects. Yet software engineers have techniques for producing reliable, high quality software that does what it says on the tin, every time. So why the difference?

Most commercial software development environments are insane. The average `Suit' controls the money, controls the purse strings, and uses that power to prevent engineers getting the job done. Why? And what can you do about it? Duncan tells you.

I've built software in many commercial environments, and I can attest that the insanities described in this book are real and common. I've long since followed the tactic of charging by the hour, so if the suits are stupid enough to wreck software development, and they usually are, then at least some of the financial consequences end up in my pocket. Furthermore, all I allow myself to care about is doing quality work. I dare not care about the overall project, because these idiots habitually prevent it being achieved. If I cared, I'd get depressed.

But what if you're one of these guys who does care? What if you're stuck where you are, and you can see the idiots' usual stupidity will force you to work insane hours in a few months time? Grab this book. Duncan's been there, done that, sorted it out, written it down. He describes juicily devious tactics and strategies needed for you to keep your home life, and get results.

But, as Duncan shows, the Suits are not actually being stupid. Yes, they are being ignorant of your world, but you don't understand their world. They've got the power, the money, they pay your wages, so you'll have to manipulate them on their term to get your work done. Well, alright, they are being stupid, but they've got the power, life's a bitch, deal with it, here's how.

I spent a lot of my youth playing big-P politics, where I learnt to detest political games for their own sake. I developed small-p political skills, now put away in a mental box marked "for emergencies only". Well, I peaked in the box while reading this book, and I believe the trickery Duncan describes will work. But the irony is he advocates the same tricks the Suits use, so in the end you'll go much of the way to becoming one of them. Is a home life worth that? Of course it is!

You know another interesting thing about this book? There's real life in here. If you're thinking literature, if you want a real environment where people care, need each other, but haven't a clue, here it is. If you want to work out what your characters will do, what drives them, how they get results, here it is. If you want motivation for dastardly deeds (which Duncan doesn't mention, let alone advocate, apart from the chihuahuas), here it most certainly is!

You know, companies that do things properly get results. Companies that don't, they just screw up. If you make yourself aware, and do something about it, you can turn the failure round, despite the best efforts of the idiots with power. People up top notice. Now whether they'll fire you or promote you, that's another issue, and Duncan deals with it. But if they fire you, they're a bunch of tossers, they don't deserve you. If they fire people for success, they're going to fail, and you'll be somewhere else when they do.

Not every commercial software environment is stupid. I've worked in companies that understand how software is actually built. These are the companies that produce the products people use every day. They are successful. If you're very, very lucky, you'll work in such companies too. But if you don't, and you won't, and if you care, buy this book.

This book is well-written, sparkled with Duncan's humour. His prose is enjoyable and carries you along well. He's found a good balance between getting facts and ideas across, and keeping you entertained.

If you're a software engineer, and you want a life, buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: What They Don't Teach You in School
Review: The author calls this book a "field manual" for software developers. It contains a number of strategies for dealing with coworkers and managers, preventing project catastrophies, and in general helping the programmer improve his working environment and smooth out the development process as much as possible. This is a book about self-defense as a programmer and as an employee.

The chapters read like essays or lectures. Each contains gems of wisdom, but they are buried in amusing and well-worded but tangential redundancies. If the book had a little less fluff, I wouldn't have nicked a star from my rating.

That said, I've just finished a chapter and found a few of the exact sort of strategies I was looking for. The author is both intelligent and pragmatic. Its weaknesses aside, this is precisely the kind of book I've been searching for.

Rating:
Summary: The Message Is Obvious
Review: There have been many reviewers who have complained that this book does not convey any meaningful ideas. These are the same MBAs who have trouble performing basic arithmetic. I can only guess that they're angry that Duncan has finally exposed all of their sordid little games.

The message of this book is very clear: protect yourself, because nobody else is going to, especially not your superiors.

Your manager is not your buddy, no matter how graciously he smiles at you and no matter how many times he slaps you on the back. You can deny it all you want but the truth is that, to the people in charge, you are just another body. They will use you to further their own ends; whether this means taking credit for your work, sacrificing you to a witch hunt, or sending your job offshore. They'll count their pay raise over your dead corpse if it serves their purpose.

Your welfare is not their concern. At the end of the day, the only person who is going to look out for you is ... well, you. This is what Duncan's book is about. And, YES, he does give a number of tactics you can use to this end. The reviewers who claim otherwise have their heads so far up their @sses that they obviously can't read straight.

The recent economic downturn supports all of this. Managers at big software corporations (read Micro$oft, IBM, Intel, HP) have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of engineers to the financial gods in New York. They either sent the jobs offshore or found ways to wring a little more blood out of people who were already overworked (i.e. hello 80 hr. work week!). They don't care how loyal you are. They don't care how skilled, or innovative, you are. They don't give a d@mn about your good intentions.

However, they might be a little more cautious if you happen to know where a couple of bodies are buried...

If you don't learn how to fight, you're just a target that doesn't shoot back. With bullets whizzing around today's workplace, at least Duncan's book gives you a fighting chance.

...unless you're Bill Gates, of course. Then you don't need this book.

Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for IT departments...
Review: There's the official and sanitized version of how IT works and how to manage your career within that realm. And then there's the *real* lowdown from those who have been there. Christopher Duncan has written a funny but all too true guide to IT in his book The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress).

The chapter selection is as follows: Welcome To Corporate America; Business Is War. Meet The Enemy; Good Coding Skills Are Not Enough; Preventing Arbitrary Deadlines; Getting Your Requirements Etched In Stone; Effective Design Under Fire; Practical Estimating Techniques; Fighting For Quality Assurance; Keeping The Project Under Control; Managing Your Management; Corporate Self-Defense; Controlling Your Destiny; Index

OK... Looking at this list of chapters, you may be thinking, ho hum. But when you are quickly introduced to the night guard's attack Chihuahua who is paranoid from dodging monitors that have been thrown out of the 5th story window, you know you're in for something different. And in the last chapter, you'll find this gem concerning resumes designed to weed out potential idiots you may not want to work for (and yes, this is part of *his* resume):

This system supports controllers in their management of large, heavy flying objects containing people who typically prefer uneventful landings, so the system must run 24/7 with zero failures... Design phase of the system utilized UML and only a small number of cocktail napkins, all of which were object oriented.

Perhaps it's not a recommended style, but it goes to show that you are looking for the right boss as much as they are looking for the right developer.

The chapters on designing your application are especially valuable as they show you how to deal with too much work in too little time with next to no requirements. You'll learn how to play the game such that you can build in the time you need to do the necessary design (or at least as much as you can hope for) and not find yourself forever working 20 hour days to deliver a project that is never done. And throughout the book, Duncan's irreverent wit and sense of humor will keep you laughing and reading along.

This should probably be required reading for all new IT personnel starting out on their "grand adventure". And for those who have been in the field for awhile but still can't understand why they work 70 hour weeks for months on end, you'll find some ways out in these pages.

Rating:
Summary: Should be required reading for IT departments...
Review: There's the official and sanitized version of how IT works and how to manage your career within that realm. And then there's the *real* lowdown from those who have been there. Christopher Duncan has written a funny but all too true guide to IT in his book The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World (Apress).

The chapter selection is as follows: Welcome To Corporate America; Business Is War. Meet The Enemy; Good Coding Skills Are Not Enough; Preventing Arbitrary Deadlines; Getting Your Requirements Etched In Stone; Effective Design Under Fire; Practical Estimating Techniques; Fighting For Quality Assurance; Keeping The Project Under Control; Managing Your Management; Corporate Self-Defense; Controlling Your Destiny; Index

OK... Looking at this list of chapters, you may be thinking, ho hum. But when you are quickly introduced to the night guard's attack Chihuahua who is paranoid from dodging monitors that have been thrown out of the 5th story window, you know you're in for something different. And in the last chapter, you'll find this gem concerning resumes designed to weed out potential idiots you may not want to work for (and yes, this is part of *his* resume):

This system supports controllers in their management of large, heavy flying objects containing people who typically prefer uneventful landings, so the system must run 24/7 with zero failures... Design phase of the system utilized UML and only a small number of cocktail napkins, all of which were object oriented.

Perhaps it's not a recommended style, but it goes to show that you are looking for the right boss as much as they are looking for the right developer.

The chapters on designing your application are especially valuable as they show you how to deal with too much work in too little time with next to no requirements. You'll learn how to play the game such that you can build in the time you need to do the necessary design (or at least as much as you can hope for) and not find yourself forever working 20 hour days to deliver a project that is never done. And throughout the book, Duncan's irreverent wit and sense of humor will keep you laughing and reading along.

This should probably be required reading for all new IT personnel starting out on their "grand adventure". And for those who have been in the field for awhile but still can't understand why they work 70 hour weeks for months on end, you'll find some ways out in these pages.

Rating:
Summary: Bodyshop Coder's Rant
Review: This book could be a very good life guide for those Corporate America worms and ameabas, who plan to code away all their lifetime in a cubicle, and die puzzled what the _real_ life was, or could be, if they could transcend their fears and stereotypes. And to be sure this won't happen, the book sows fear, uncertainty, and doubt (F-U-D) into the minds of future software engineers and atchitects.

For some reasons (Chris admits he had an unsuccessful business owner experience, maybe that's why), the author thinks that his "career path" of a typical bodyshop rent-a-coder gave him couple or so good wisdoms that he's about to share. That may be so, but it is also clear that the book is written entirely from defensive and passive position.

This book (a) won't tell you how to make your life or others' better or easier, (b) won't teach you how to make any impact in this world before you make it on your deathbed, and (c) may cause ulcer, indigestion and gases.

Surprisingly, the book is not a survival guide for the Corporate World, either. It gives merely enough guidance to get by from paycheck to paycheck. In certain chapters, the "real-life" advices the author gives are plainly dead-headed and dumb.

RECOMMENDATION: It's enough to browse this book for 10-15 minutes while you're at Borders or Barnes. Don't spend more than 30 minutes of your time, looking for hidden truths in it, for none is there.

BOTTOM-LINE: A bitter by-product of the dot-com bubble burst era, written from a loser's perspective.

Rating:
Summary: A must read for every IT professional
Review: This book is not only about Corporate America, but also about Corporate Europe.
The book gives a good explanation why sales and marketings give us such a hard time, and how we can solve all the problems we encounter in these situations. You will recognize a lot of situations he mentions, and will regret that you didn't read this book before you started your life as a programmer in the Corporate world and spent whole weekends programming because the deadlines are approaching.
The Career Programmer is a must read for every programmer, junior or senior. I even think that this book is very good literature for sales & marketing people and for managers.
I'm sure that I will read this book more than once. It was written in a "cut the..." way, very humorous and still very interesting. (I really like the way chris goes to job interviews :)
I'm looking forward to other books from Chris !

Rating:
Summary: A good eye-opener to the programming business
Review: This book isn't a normal technical book; it even isn't a technical book at all, but a non-technical book for programmers and a good one in my humble opinion.
This book isn't also a great literature prose, nothing of this actually. This book is direct, uses to the maximum the conversational style and an enjoyable and fun digestible prose, so isn't dry and boring to read.
Check the table of contents to see what I mean ;-)
This isn't a book that focuses on state of the art UML designs and patterns , nothing on these matters , actually.
This book talks about human beings , a specific kind of human being, nevertheless ;-)
This book describes the state of affairs not only on Corporate America where the author work, but it also applies to every single country that has a software house or a programming department.
This book talks about survival and fighting for your destiny, the aim: to survive, to be in control of your destiny and to have fun programming.
The title says it all: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World, and in this light, the book accomplishes his desired feat: helping us with background, techniques, new ways of thinking, attaining realistic deadlines, having a life, this and more the friendly author talks about.
Although I have some minor programming experience due to my 4 years on this programming business, I think I passed all the book, shaking my head in accordance with the author's descriptions of real work situations, insane managers and insane corporate politics that I already passed (and I'm still passing it...) in a similar manner. Even now that I'm more experienced, the author have some really good ideas to employ on my daily work, that I'm sure I'll adapt for my personal use !
Summing up, the book is a great tool of preparation for a novice programmer, a good and refreshing read for the seasoned programmer and definitely the book have some good techniques to be used in this programming business.
Another great plus is the fact that the author is a nice, approchable and friendly fellow author/programmer if you want discuss any topic with him.