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(More customer reviews)If you are a programmer who is constantly persuing self-improvement of your software development skills, but is frustrated by your social development environment (i.e. Management), this book is for you. You care enough about yourself to try and fix your troubled environment. After you finish this book, I suggest giving Pete McBreen's Software Craftsmanship a read, and follow that with Alistair Cockburn's Agile Software Development. Duncan's book shows software development as a battleground of politics and ego-tanks-Duncan suggests ways to survive that crazy mess. If you actually want to change the way you develop software, McBreen and Cockburn show you the door.
I finally finished the Career Programmer after putting it down so many months ago because...I found it...depressing. Why? I lived that crazy mess. However, I have a hard time pinning down who his intended audience is--the Sr. Programmer, the middling programmer, the junior programmer? He certainly addresses all of these, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph. I suppose that he's writing to them all, or more appropriately-to the program manager that's been promoted from Sr. Engineer. I guess this because he talks about accurately tracking your activities (a PSP tactic), Managing your Team, and Putting together your Testing Team. This is obviously a mix of topics that's going to apply to a project manager.
Duncan repeatedly puts the onus on the reader to be responsible for these activities because no one else, and certainly not your management will do these things for you. (Depressing.) He compliments this advice with more survivalist wisdom on politics: don't stick your head too high and get fired. Don't lay too low and ignore the politics game and get fired for becoming redundant. Make sure to kiss up and make sure to praise management but suggest ideas on how their protect could be "better" with ideas from the other corner of your mouth at the same time.
This endless list of survival tactics is guidebook material for beginning programmers, but like I said, if he's writing to project managers, it behoves the project manager (or Sr. Programmer) to teach their Jr. programmers these tactics. It would be a very intimidating book to read for the entry level programmer. However, entry level programmers, in my experience, don't read much (they Know How To Program: bring it on!) and it's the team lead programmers who by discovering failure, start reading these books. Thus, this book is yet another depressing account of Thinks You Should Have Known.
Duncan, in his wisdom, points out something that many a programmer has oft reflected on: career path. He doesn't talk about this to much point, but his section on it says: have a thought about what kind of developer you want to be before you jump into the industry and let it mold you into something you regret. How many of us feel molded even now? Too many. I reflect on how a doctor or a lawyer could easily make the same kind of mistake--let their industry whisk them along and wake up to find themselves as a profession in a field they failed to choose.
However, this book is saturated with irony: almost all pointed advice Duncan gives is to subvert the system. Sneak in your testing staff. Sneak in your design time. Lie about what you're doing to give your self time to do things management is too ignorant to approve of. Duncan writes: life is too short to work for clowns, but if you have to pull these stunts to build a development team, to what degree of clown do you stop working for? People concerned about the reality of the software industry should pay attention to the reality presented in Duncan's book.
I think that many of the topics that Duncan raises in his book are artifacts of Scientific Management and Software Engineering. The environments that Duncan describes - offices full of idiotic ego-battles where people talk about producing software - would not exist were Pete McBreen's vision of software development the existing reality (a reality where people cared about getting the work done as it reflects their reputation).
I also find it interesting to note that much of what Duncan writes has been written by Steve McConnell in Rapid Development and Software Project Survival Guide. However, McConnell and Duncan describe something much closer to the Software Engineering environment than what, in my experience, is actually the reallity for smaller application development projects. I had echoed the ideas McConnell promoted for lack of any better writing on software development. However, after reading McBreen and Cockburn's respective works, my views on how to develop applications have radically changed towards the Craftsman approach. McConnell, in After the Goldrush provides many good arguments for the Licensing of Software Engineers, McBreen compliments McConnell's tack that such licensing efforts-are only rarely applicable.
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Unrealistic schedules, unstable releases, continual overtime, and skyrocketing stress levels are legendary in the software development industry. Unlike traditional occupations such as accounting or administration, the software business is populated with programmers who are as creative and passionate about their work as musicians and artists. But for most programmers and project managers, it is a complete surprise when they enter the business world and find that internal politics, inept management, and unrealistic marketing drive the process, rather than a structured and orderly approach based on technical issues and quality.
This guide, delivered with the wit and aplomb to make a serious topic entertaining and palatable, will help you survive the programming industry in 2006. The Career Programmer explains how you can work within the existing system to solve deadline problems and regain control of the development process. Youll master self-defense techniques to shield yourself, your project, and your code from corporate politics, arbitrary management decisions, and marketing-driven deadlines. Author Chris Duncan provides proven, practical, hands-on solutions designed to work even when tested by the political and chaotic realities of the business environment. Issues are addressed from the points of view of both the programmer and project manager, and steps are illustrated from all perspectivesfrom large-scale teams down to projects with a single developer. For you, the end results will mean less overtime and stress, higher-quality software, and a more satisfying career.
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