Here I would like to promote to everyone this excelent book.
The Passionate Programmer book tells how not to fall in despair doing your regular programmer's work and work out remarkable software developer career. All ideas presented in form of blog posts related to various areas of selfdevelopment.
This book is full of obvious things, actually. But these are the things you don't always remember about, seeing no forest for the trees.
Thus, I've decided to write'em down, mostly to memorize them better. You may also find these thoughts useful, but I would strongly suggest to come down with your money and buy this book.
It starts with a chapter named "Find your market". Following is a list of recipes how to choose a right market.
- Leed or bleed? Both ends of the technology adoption curve might prove to be lucrative.
- Supply and Demand. You can’t compete on price. Exploit market imbalances.
- Coding don't cut it anymore. Just like technologies that become hot, business domains can be selected in the same way.
- Be the worst. This one is my favorite. In short you should always try to find people that are better then you and work with them. The people around you affect your own performance. Choose your crowd wisely.
- Invest in your intelligence. Love to learn new things.
- Don't listen to your parents. Take calculated riskswith your career.Don’t let fear consume you.
- Be a Generalist. Generalists are rare...and, therefore, precious. Your skills should transcend technology platforms.
- Be a Specialist. Specializing in something doesn't means not knowing about other things.
- Don't put all your eggs in someone else's basket. Though it’s possible to build a business that exists as a parasite of another, as an individual it’s an incredibly risky thing to do. Vendor-centric views are typically myopic.
