The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World [Paperback]

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.

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.