This made me curious about what unpopular resources I might be missing out on.
Doesn't have to be a book -- any resource or technique is fine, it was just easier to say 'book' in the title.
I've always been fascinated, and driven by, good health; particularly in the context of working at a desk on a computer all day long.
This book has helped me to understand the implications and negative impact of typical habits surrounding working at a computer; specifically sitting all day.
By considering, and practicing, the advice presented in the book, I've changed the way that I physically work which in turn has significantly impacted my efficiency and performance.
I now stand a majority of the day and have learned methods for doing so effectively without simply tiring out my legs and causing a different set of problems. I've learned much about posture, particularly in the context of typing, which has helped reduce various aches and pains. And I've also learned various mobility exercises which have reduced stiffness in my arms, shoulders, and neck.
All in all, I feel better, which in turn has helped me to gain mental clarity and stay focused.
It's a really outdated book about a "perfect" anarchist sociaty. I started reading it for the political theme, but the author was so hopeful and puts so must trust in common people that I couldn't stop smile while reading it. It hit me harder that I could've ever imagined, I started putting more trust in others and totally changed the way I confront people. At that time I was a team leader in a really chaotic company and the change of approach did wonders. Management even started to receive request from other developers to join our team.
I found the first half of "Prometheus Rising" by Robert Anton Wilson to be incredibly useful for understanding human dynamics -- I use the framework presented there every day. The core of this is in my opinion just a very straightforward computer-focused analogy that gives me insight into the behaviour of other people and myself that I haven't found elsewhere.
Of course, outside the core is a LOT of wild new age, Crowley-Leary-Regardie syncretism that provokes strong negative throw-the-book-across-the-room reactions in most people. A lot of very reasonable people would look at the wikipedia page or the cover of this book and not only think that the book is crap, but also that I'm a crazy hippie for even considering reading it.
Also, "The Death of Ivan Ilych" [3] by Tolstoy. I felt like a ping-pong ball in the hands of the author: whichever way he wanted me to think at a certain point in the plot, I did. Masterful insight into the life and death of an ordinary, diligent man. And, above and beyond that, it depicts the rarely avoidable self-centeredness of humans.
Oh, and lately, the prominent Finnish deep ecologist Pentti Linkola [4] has been a huge influence on me. In the Nordic countries, he is sometimes called "ecofascist", but this is an obvious cherry-picked overstatement of his views to my mind. I think only one of his books has been translated into English, though: "Can Life Prevail?" [5].
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confession
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_God_Is_Within_Y...
3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Ivan_Ilyich
4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola and a fan page at http://www.penttilinkola.com/
5: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6397542-can-life-prevail
2) Principles of Product Development Flow, Donald G. Reinertsen
3) Step Away from the Computer or Hammock Driven Development, Rich Hi ckey
https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...
First published in 2007, Patterns... describes a kind of grand unification of network protocols, collapsing the fraught OSI model into a single, recursive layer. Notable features include: the unification of transport semantics, from TCP to UDP; the decimation of Internet routes through private-everywhere, topological addressing; the supplanting of URL and DNS with application names and a dynamic, distributed directory; elegant approaches to mobility and multicast/anycast; emergent security and DDoS mitigation; emergent throughput and connection scaling; a sophisticated approach to monitoring and management; and much more.
With the arguable failure of IPv6, the deepening swamp of IoT, and the now-leaning tower of HTTP-based transports, Patterns... illuminates a different path, one that can still be taken, both in the small and the large.
In programming, the analogous problem is API design: taking whatever data structures are used by a software tool internally, and figuring out how to present them to external programmers in a useful, intelligible way. If there’s a mismatch between the internal structure of the system and the structure of what-users-want, then it’s the API designer’s job to translate. A “good” API is one which handles the translation well.
User interface design is a more general version of the same problem: take whatever structures are used by a tool internally, and figure out how to present them to external users in a useful, intelligible way. Conceptually, the only difference from API design is that we no longer assume our users are programmers interacting with the tool via code. We design the interface to fit however people use it - that could mean handles on doors, or buttons and icons in a mobile app, or the temperature knobs on a fridge.
This is not a straightforward article, so I can see how people could struggle with it, but I love every bit of it.
The author taught me to slow down, work less, and pay more attention to the other things.
[0] https://medium.com/@the_jennitaur/how-to-do-nothing-57e100f5...
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The Life-Changing Magic Of Not Giving A F*ck, or at least the first chapter or two. This book should have been a blog article, so you don't need to read the whole thing.
Long story short, it's minimalism for obligations. If it doesn't bring joy or serve a purpose, chuck it.
It's not a clever book, but I suppose it hit at the right time. It made me realise how most work obligations are negotiable. It emboldened me to cancel meetings, cut their headcount, and send people back to their desks once they played their part in them.
When I went freelance, I applied the same energy to maintenance tasks like accounting, comment moderation and the dreaded introductory phone calls.
Incidentally, I found this book referenced in this article: "Why Should Doctors Read Medical Books?" by Dr. Eric Cassell [0]
[0] http://www.ericcassell.com/download/WhyShouldDoctorsReadMedi...
A couple of interesting insights:
- Software engineers are more like doctors/lawyers so why do software organizations look more traditional businesses rather than agencies?
- The way corporations are structured there is no incentive for software engineers at the bottom of the hierarchy to put more than a token effort in.
There's also a previous ASK HN about the "books that improved your career" [1].
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35051753- developer-hegemony
[edit]
reddit: https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22comb...
Should the authors of lousy APIs be held accountable for their crimes? Why changing APIs might become a criminal offense Why changing APIs might become a criminal offense - Should the authors of lousy APIs be held accountable for their crimes?