[brandall10]

Books like these can be quite a shock to a large set of devs out there. Think enterprise code jockeys who don't read tech books or pay attention to what is going on out there and learn everything they do on the job.

I read Code Complete 2 after developing software for maybe 6-7 years in an environment like this. Much of it was obvious, but the rest was a revelation. Same with The Pragmatic Programmer.

Several years later I read a book called "The Passionate Programmer", which was like the book described in this article - soft, career development skills. That was probably the most important book I've ever read. In fact it's how I found out about Hacker News in addition to a whole bunch of different books. It lit a fire in me.

4 years later, I have a career that is so dramatically different I don't even know where to begin. On the same token, I reread that book (Passionate Programmer) recently and it does seem like common sense I would absorbed over time from things I read on HN.