Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler What Readers Are Saying About T he Passionate Programmer If you are passionate about software craftsmanship, if you want to be a great software developer, if you want to love your work, or if you want to raise the ba r and turn software development into a profes- sion instead of a job, then read this book. In these pages, Chad Fowler presents a set of no-nonsense heuristics, disciplines, and attitudes that will teach you how to respect and love your profession—and be great at it. Bob Martin P resident, Object Mentor, Inc. The great thing about this book is that it is full of plans—things I can do. It keeps responsibility for my situation where it belongs—on me. This book makes it clear that I’m not alone, it shows that my situation is not uniquely sca ry, and it explains what I can do today. And tomor- row. And for the rest of my career. Kent Beck P rogrammer Six short months before I read Chad’s book, I was on the verge of changing careers. Through a serie s of accidents from November to May, I decided not only to stick with software development but to be passionate about it while striving to be great. With a healthy dose of inspiration, the book you’re now holding served as a road map for achieving those goals. Sammy Larbi C hief Spaghetti Coder, codeodor.com Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler The Passionate Programmer Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development Chad Fowler The Pragmatic Bookshelf Raleigh, North Carolina Dallas, Texas Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler Many of the designations used by m anufacturers and sellers to distinguish their prod- u cts are claimed as trademarks. Where th ose designations appear in this book, and The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters or in all capitals. The Pragmatic Starter Kit, The Pragmatic Programmer, Pragmatic Programming, Pragmatic Bookshelf and the linking g de vice are trademarks of The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. Every precaution was taken in the preparation of this book. However, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages that may result from the use of information (including program listings) contained herein. Our Pragmatic courses, workshops, and other products can help you and your team create better software and h ave more fun. For more information, as well as the latest Pragmatic titles, please visit us at http://www.pragprog.com Copyright © 2 0 09 Chad Fowler. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system , or transmit- ted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, phot ocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN-10: 1-934356-34-4 ISBN-13: 978-1-934356-34-0 Printed on acid-free paper. P1.0 printing, April 2009 Version: 2009-4-15 Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler For Kelly Jeanne Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler Contents Foreword 10 Acknowledgments 11 Introduction 13 Part I—Choosing Your Market 20 1. Lead or Bleed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2. Supply and Demand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3. Coding Don’t Cut It Anymore . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 4. Be the Worst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 5. Invest in Your Intelligence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 6. Don’t Listen to Your Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 7. Be a Generalist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 8. Be a Specialist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 9. Don’t Put All Your Eggs in Someone Else’s Basket . . 54 10. Love It or Leave It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Part II—Investing in Your Product 62 11. Learn to Fish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 12. Learn How Businesses Really Work . . . . . . . . . . 68 13. Find a M entor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 14. Be a Mentor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 15. Practice, Practice, Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 16. The Way That You Do It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 17. On the Shoulders of Giants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 18. Automate Yourself into a Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Part III—Executing 94 19. Right Now . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 20. Mind Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 21. Daily Hit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler CONTENTS 8 2 2. Remember Who You Work For . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 23. Be Where You’re At . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 24. How Good a Job Can I Do Today? . . . . . . . . . . . 109 25. How Much Are You Worth? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 26. A Pebble in a Bucket of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 27. Learn to Love Maintenance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118 28. Eight-Hour Burn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122 29. Learn How to Fail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 30. Sa y “No” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 31. Don’t Pa nic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 32. Sa y It, Do It, Show It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 Part IV—Marketing Not Just for Suits 143 33. Perceptions, Perschmeptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 34. Adventure Tour Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 35. Me Rite Reel Nice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152 36. Being Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 37. Suit Speak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 38. Change the World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 39. Let Your Voice Be Heard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 40. Build Your Brand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 41. Release Your Code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 42. Remarkability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 43. Making the Hang . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174 Part V—Maintaining Your Edge 179 44. Already Obsolete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 45. You’ve Already Lost Your Job . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 46. Path with No Destination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 47. Make Yourself a Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 48. Watch the M arket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 49. That Fat Man in the Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192 50. The South Indian Monkey Trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 51. Avoid Waterfall Career Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 52. Better Than Yesterday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 53. Go Independent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Report erratum t his copy is (P1.0 printing, April 2009) Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler CONTENTS 9 H ave Fun 210 Resources 211 Report erratum t his copy is (P1.0 printing, April 2009) Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler Forewo rd I believe tha t everyone has remarkable in them but tha t it takes finding something they truly care about to draw it out. You can’t be remarkable if you don’t love your environment, your tools, and your d omain. Before I had my spark lit with 37signals and Ruby on Rails, I went through a series of jobs and gigs that cer tainly wouldn’t fit the bill as remarkable. I was treading water a nd just letting one day eat the next. Before I knew it, six months were gone, and I didn’t have anything to show for it. That’s a terrible feeling of regret. I hate the feeling that my presence doesn’t really matter and that the world would have been exactly no different in a meaningful way if my work hadn’t been done. To become remarkable, you have to believe that you’re making a significant dent in the universe. When I wasn’t making a dent at work, it spilled over to my personal life too. When I didn’t feel like I was having an impact during office hours, it was that much harder to muster the effort to ha v e an impac t afterward. To me, leading a remarkable career is the best way I know to kick start that same desire for leading a remarkable life—one where you don’t just become a better and more valua b le worker, but you become a bet- ter human too. That’s why this book is so important. It’s not just about making better widgets and feeling secure in your job. It’s just as much about develop- ing the skills and sensibilities f or leading a more rewarding life filled with many remarkable aspects, with work just being one of them. —David Heinemeier Hansson Creator of Ruby on Rails and partner in 37signals Prepared exclusively for Alison Tyler [...]... item, then the price of the item will decrease If there are more people who want the item than there are items available to be purchased, the price of the item will increase as potential buyers compete In addition to predicting the prices of goods and services, the supplyand-demand model can predict how price changes will affect the number of people willing to sell and purchase a product or service There... teaching themselves The market was hot, the salaries or hourly fees were attractive, and the supply of HTML experts started to rise as a response As the market flooded with web designers, the web people started to stratify between the truly artistic and the utilitarian Furthermore, competition started to drive the prices down As a result of lower prices, more companies were willing to take their first... haven’t even heard of RPG They’re all learning Java and NET It’s easy to imagine that the careers of the last-remaining stalwarts of an aged and dying technology are in the same death spiral as the technology itself But, the old systems don’t just die They are replaced Furthermore, in most cases, homegrown systems are replaced in stages In those stages, the old systems have to talk to the new systems Someone... Someone has to know how to make the new speak to the old, and vice versa Typically, the young tykes don’t know (or want to know) how to make the old systems listen Nor do the crusty old pre-retirees know how to make the newfangled systems talk to their beloved creatures So, there’s a role to be filled by a calculating technologist: technology hospice Helping the Both ends of the old systems die comfortably... ejected from the bandstand I’d find myself standing next to people I looked up to, expected to perform at their level—sometimes as the lead instrument! Without fail (thankfully!), something magical would happen in these situations: I would fit in I wouldn’t stand out among the other musicians as a star On the other hand, I wouldn’t be obviously outclassed, either This would happen for two reasons The first... indistinguishable from the rest of the project that even the original developers eventually won’t remember who wrote it Then, when you’re satisfied with your work, submit it as a patch If it’s good, it will be accepted into the project Start over, and do it again If you’ve made decisions that the project’s developers disagree with, either incorporate their feedback and resubmit or take note of the changes they make... rewarding career (and thereby to a happier life) You might make more money if you follow this advice You might gain more recognition or even become famous But please don’t forget that these are not the goals They’re a means to an end Failure Is Off the Radar! One of the major steps along the road to creating a remarkable career for myself was, ironically, writing the first edition of this book The book used... many of these cases, I would get called by one or more of these superior musicians for additional work or to even start bands with them Attempting to be the worst actually stops you from selling yourself short You might belong in the A band but always put yourself in the B band, because you’re afraid Acknowledging outright that you’re not the best wipes away the fear of being discovered for the not-best... insights into the decisions these innovators, developers, managers, and entrepreneurs have made along the path to success They also underscore the fact that the techniques outlined here aren’t just idealistic suggestions applicable only in a perfect environment They’re real things that real people can do and accomplish Some of the original tips have been removed, and several new tips have been added The entire... naturally lead to an increase in this category of Java work The low-end jobs might be going offshore, but there are more of the elite jobs to go around than there were pre-offshoring As we saw in the niche job markets, in this tier of Java development work, the competition would shift from price to ability The most important lesson we can learn from the supply and demand model is that Exploit market with . A. Wood. They truly made the book better, and I can’t thank them enough for their time, energy, and insight. The ideas in this book were inspired by the many. please don’t forget that these are not the goals. They’re a means to an end. Failure Is Off the Radar! One of the major steps along the road to creating a