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sabzetro | 3 years ago
At the point in my life where I read this book, I was a recent ComSci grad, I had already started working and it was clear to me that I needed some framework to understand where I was going. Not just in terms of software, but in general, I needed some north star as far as a process and an ideal to achieve were concerned.
Reading this book gave me exactly that. A clear, understandable framework that explained the progression from understanding how to do something, to being good at doing something, to being a master. While it didn't give me a step by step guide, the lessons in this book gave me ideals by which to work out my own trajectory, whether or not I felt at any given point as though the efforts I was putting in were guiding me towards mastery, but more so than anything, this book gave me patience. I read somewhere that (maybe just in my country, I can't remember) once you've been a software developer for 5 years, you have crossed over the median age of experience in the industry. As a younger engineer, I was impatient, in a rush to do Interesting Work⢠and had no appreciation for how whatever I was doing at the current moment was perhaps exactly what I needed to do to get to what was important, which is mastery. That is to say, getting past the point of good to the point of exemplary, not just being a consumer or repeater of skills but a creator of them. I read this book in Year 1 of my software career, I am now in year 5 and I know that because of this book, years 10, 15 and 20 will bring more reward and more joy in deepening skill.
dev_0|3 years ago