I just finished reading The Passionate Programmer*, and it is already one of my favorite programming books. The Passionate Programmer is a great set of guidelines that is a must read for anyone looking to cultivate an awesome career in software development.

While I was pleasantly surprised to see that most of the guidelines described are things that I just instinctively do, it kind of shocked me that they needed to be listed at all. Things like practicing your craft and choosing what language/platform to specialize in seems like it should be common sense. With that being said, I think that Chad Fowler does an excellent job of outlining a path from turning your job into a career using a mix of real life stories (like the origin story of Github) and practical advice (like not investing entirely on one platform).

I really enjoyed the “Act on it!” sections at the end of each chapter. They provide ways to take the advice and guidelines from the chapter and apply it to your daily life almost instantly. I think this fills a gap that a lot of other books miss. Without being able to clearly see a way to apply what they’re reading to their daily lives, I think a lot of readers get lost in the warm fuzzy feeling they get when reading about how great they will be.

My only criticism is that some of the chapters do seem to be lacking, specifically the “Make Yourself a Map” chapter. The chapter explains why you should create yourself a map to the career you wish to have. The only issue is that he doesn’t explain how to create this map. Maybe it’s my lack of creativity, but I can’t envision how this map should look, so an example would have been nice.

*Yes, the Amazon link is a referral link. Any revenue generated will be used to fund various user groups, code camps and open source projects that catch my attention.