[oneiftwo]

Never in my life have I found these totally generic advice collations useful.

They're always vague, unfalsifiable, borderline platitudes. They "work" for the same reasons horoscopes work, and I think a sizable minority, if not majority, of people publishing such work are just sociopathic profiteers.

This post is an advertisement, but sadly that seems to be the origin of most content on the internet now - at least the SEO optimized results that fill the first (1-10?) pages.

[stevenjohns]

As a counterpoint, I’ve found these books to be extremely useful and it has had profound positive impacts on my decisions.

It’s not telling you to wake up at 4am because that’s what [unicorn startup ceo] does. The advice given here is how to step back and find solutions, which is great for people who have difficulty arriving at those points.

Likening it to horoscopes because it doesn’t work for you is like me dismissing books on dieting because I’m already slim.

Lots of people don’t have positive role models, good teachers, mentors, or even stable parents. So even things as simple as “don’t be quick to anger, step back and think about the long term consequences” are lessons that many people have never been taught.

[peteretep]

Absolutely. I have made a study of self help books, and they’re full simply of ideas, rather than facts. These ideas have been invaluable to me.

[Sevaris]

> Never in my life have I found these totally generic advice collations useful.

I only check the HN comments for posts like this. That's where the real meaty content is where actual programmers/engineers talk about what may or may not have worked for them.