Alexandre Trilla, PhD - Data Scientist |

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-- Thoughts on data analysis, software development and innovation management. Comments are welcome

The Passionate Programmer in the late-2000s recession

03-Jun-2012

The present receding economy displays a scenario that is wildly unknown, and this inevitably affects the attitude that we take with respect to our careers, reminding us all of the crucial importance to always be heading to where the magic happens. In addition to the renown advice to not settle, what's utterly of value is to stay hungry in this continuously changing world.

In this regard, the Passionate (and Pragmatic) Programmer provides some insight that is worth noting. In this post, I review some of its guidelines to "create a remarkable career in software development", and the many connections with the present situation arise naturally (the book was published three years ago):

Pursue the bleeding edge of technology (the Next Big Thing), out of the comfort zone.
Seek salient features as a professional (this was related to the author's stay in India for recruitment issues, which reminded me of the Aspiring Minds Machine Learning Competition).
Choose your crowd wisely. The people around you affect your own performance. Make the hang with the greats. Be on the shoulders of giants, there are many ways to paraphrase this.
Practise at your limits to improve. If you always do what you've always done, you will always get what you've always got.
Work with a mission. Attain daily accomplishments (consider the pomodoro technique).
You are what you can explain, so don't make a fool of yourself with (unnecessary) rigid values (avoid monkey traps).
Be intentional about your choice of career path and how to invest in your professional self. Career choices should be sought after and decided upon with intention. Each choice should be part of a greater whole (connecting the dots...).

And last but not least: you can't creatively help a business until you know how it works. In this regard, the next book in my reading list is The Lean Startup.