The Passionate Programmer Book Review

Earlier this year, I've been given the chance to read any book of my choice from the Pragmatic Programmer bookshelf and write a quick review. Being so focused right now on figuring out where I want to go with my career, I thought I'd give The Passionate Programmer a try. I mean, who doesn't want to be passionate about their job? Loving what you do makes it fun and this is the key to a very successful career! I don't think I can do it justice until I've tried to put into practice most of what the author is preaching in the book, so here is a quick and dirty review of the book. (spoiler: I liked the book!)

The author, Chad Fowler, didn't get his start by getting a degree in computer science. Yet, he has accomplished more in his career than most software developers will ever do in their lifespan. So he must be doing something right, no? Well, the book might not teach you how to be passionate about anything. However, it will give you great pointers to make a great career out of software programming, which might make you passionate about the whole thing, I guess.

The book is divided into five independent parts, each of which you need to give serious thought to if you're ever going to become great at what you do, and remain great. In each part are multiple, small chapters of about two to three pages long, that will give you some hopefully valuable insight about growing you skills, finding mentors, pleasing your managers, how not to panic in dire situations and being careful about market changes, among many, various others topics. All in all, there are 53 "tips" in the book and I must say that most of them are very useful.

I would've wished that not all of those tips be written as if it was a recipe for success. Every single one ends with a "Act on it" section with exercises that are bound to put some of us out of our comfort zone. But maybe that's a good thing! Any day, I can open up the book and re-read one of the tips that I know I should be working on. There is no doubt in my mind that I can become a remarkable programmer by working on my weaknesses, and Chad covers most of them in his book.

This isn't a book that you'll read cover to cover. The optimal way to get through it, in my opinion, is to read it one chapter or two at a time and quickly put into practice what was read before progressing any further. Incidentally, this makes the book a very easy read; you could be spending only 15 minutes every night reading this book. But to make it effective, you'll need to actively put it into practice. I know I will. And I know I'll probably end up re-reading it a couple of times.

I have read the 7 Habits of Highly Successful People and Who Moved My Cheese and Chad's book reminded me of them. Because of that, I can only recommend this book to all my peers, unless you are already at the top of your game. Then maybe you should write your own book too! Oh wait, that's one of the tips in The Passionate Programmer!