Why this book is unlike
any book you’ve ever read
Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual is a unique guide, offering techniques and practices for a more satisfying life as a professional software developer. In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez addresses a wide range of important "soft" topics, from career and productivity to personal finance and investing, and even fitness and relationships, all from a developer-centric viewpoint
About
The Author
The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that
you are working for somebody else. Job security is
gone. The driving force of a career must come from the
individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company,
you own your career!
Career
People skills: You need them more than you think
To some degree this book is all about people skills or “soft skills.” Assomeone reading this book, you’re probably at least somewhat aware oftheir importance in your life and your career. But in this chapter, I wantto dive in a little deeper and talk about why people skills are so importantand some of the things you can do to acquire them.
I have come to the conclusion that there is only one wayunder high heaven to get the best of an argument—andthat is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoidrattlesnakes and earthquakes.
-Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People
I have come to the conclusion that there is only one wayunder high heaven to get the best of an argument—andthat is to avoid it. Avoid it as you would avoidrattlesnakes and earthquakes.
My Favorite Soft Skills book Sections
One of my favorite sections of Soft Skills has to be the one on productivity since it includes John's own personal productivity plan. Since John is so danged productive, I'm looking forward to implementing (or at least attempting to implement) his plan in order to take my digital content creation to a whole new level in 2015.
John also talks about how he uses the Pomodoro Technique to get more work done in a focused manner. If you are easily distracted and find yourself wondering at the end of each day where the time went with little to show for it, this simple technique will change your life.
Another of my favorite sections is the one on learning. If you're an engineer, you know that it is critical to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies in order to stay current.
Becoming stagnant as a software developer is the kiss of death to a long- lasting, prosperous career. Once again, John reveals a number of step-by-step processes you can follow to ensure that you stay ahead of your competition in the ever-changing world of technology.
Want proof that John knows what he's talking about? Do a search for John Sonmez on Pluralsight and take a look at the 30-plus courses he has created. The number of different topics is staggering, making it abundantly clear that John knows a great deal about both learning and productivity.
One of my favorite sections of Soft Skills has to be the one on productivity since it includes John's own personal productivity plan. Since John is so danged productive, I'm looking forward to implementing (or at least attempting to implement) his plan in order to take my digital content creation to a whole new level in 2015.
John also talks about how he uses the Pomodoro Technique to get more work done in a focused manner. If you are easily distracted and find yourself wondering at the end of each day where the time went with little to show for it, this simple technique will change your life.
Another of my favorite sections is the one on learning. If you're an engineer, you know that it is critical to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies in order to stay current.
Becoming stagnant as a software developer is the kiss of death to a long- lasting, prosperous career. Once again, John reveals a number of step-by-step processes you can follow to ensure that you stay ahead of your competition in the ever-changing world of technology.
Want proof that John knows what he's talking about? Do a search for John Sonmez on Pluralsight and take a look at the 30-plus courses he has created. The number of different topics is staggering, making it abundantly clear that John knows a great deal about both learning and productivity.
Why you need to get the Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s Life Manual
In Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual, John reveals his secrets for becoming a successful software developer. He holds nothing back — covering everything from career management and productivity to a number of topics you won't find in any other engineering books, such as finances and fitness.
I consider John to be one of the hardest working developers in the software business today, and with this book you too can discover what it takes to succeed in software development (and in life!).
This book will make a great gift for new computer science college grads as well experienced graybeards like myself. Get it now ==>
In Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual, John reveals his secrets for becoming a successful software developer. He holds nothing back — covering everything from career management and productivity to a number of topics you won't find in any other engineering books, such as finances and fitness.
I consider John to be one of the hardest working developers in the software business today, and with this book you too can discover what it takes to succeed in software development (and in life!).
This book will make a great gift for new computer science college grads as well experienced graybeards like myself. Get it now ==>
Conclusion
This is a really useful book that I would like to recommend to anyone interested in advancing their career. It is packed full with useful advice, and it’s really easy to read.
Happy Reading
Like the book said, I really hope you find this post useful 🤓
& thanks for vist ebookworld
As always, have a nice day 🙂
-Sam
Goodreads Community Reviews
Josh Hamacher (2/5)
Clearly I'm in the minority, but I don't see how this book has attracted so many four- and five-star ratings here and on Amazon. I purchased it sight-unseen based entirely on the strength of the reviews and dove right in, but soon found myself skimming it, hoping to find the few passages that didn't read like they were copy for a TV infomercial commentator.
It's not that this book is entirely wrong - in fact, there is some actual useful information here. The health and fitness section, for example, is pretty solid and generally avoids recommending fad diets or the like. But many chapters are almost entirely devoid of actual content, instead sounding very much like the overly-enthusiastic inspirational speaker parodied in so many comedies.
I suppose, if you've never spent any time at all introspecting, have never thought about why you do the things you do and how you can do them better, this book might be more useful for you.
Rod Hilton (4/5)
Soft Skills is a book for software development that isn't about software development. Author John Sonmez discusses how to manage your career, how to interview, how to prepare a resume, how to market yourself, how to improve your ability to learn and take in new information, how to experiment with new technologies, how to improve your productivity and, surprisingly, even how to manage your finances and how to stay in physical shape.
The book is, for the most part, extremely valuable. A lot of the material in the Career section has been covered in other books such as The Passionate Programmer and Land the Tech Job You Love, but the section is still somewhat useful. The section on Marketing oneself was similar, I've heard a lot of the same advice for programmers before: have a twitter account, use github, contribute to OSS, speak at conferences, write a book, etc. The section on Learning was okay but a bit abstract, and mostly common sense. For the most part, those were really the sections I was expecting from the book honestly, based on the title. I figured the book would mostly be about enriching the skills that help you thrive at work, that's typically what I consider "soft skills" at the office. I expected some stuff about navigating corporate ladders or even communicating with coworkers but there really wasn't much of that. I expected the career/marketing/learning stuff as well, and that was there though not particularly stellar.
However, the chapters that I wasn't expecting were phenomenal. The section on Productivity was great, with lots of useful tips for how to be more productive, track your productivity, and get past hurdles like procrastination. When I saw the section title I thought it was just going to be a lot of "OMGZ POMODORO TECHNIQUE!" which was there of course, but there was a lot more that was useful too.
The Financial section is the one I consider the "worth the price of admission" section of the book. If you're a software engineer, you owe it to yourself to at least read this section. It's about salary negotiation, investing, stock options, debt management, retirement plans, and more. These are things that I always wished I knew more about, but it's not taught in school and the internet is rife with scams rather than useful information on these topics. It's weird because it's always tough to ask about this sort of thing at work - people somehow expect everyone to understand 401k's and stock options, and folks are weirdly cagey about giving advice/help on these matters. The chapter on Stock Options was the first thing that finally made the subject make sense to me, and there's two sections in the Appendix about money and stock markets that are required reading as well.
The Fitness section was also great, good solid advice contained therein. There are also two more appendix sections on nutrition and fitness that are phenomenal, and they alone were better than the entirety of O'Reilly's Fitness for Geeks book. The final section, "Spirit" is largely useless. Lots of froo-froo garbage and nonsense, I found myself skimming a lot of it because I was hurting myself rolling my eyes.
Overall, the book is pretty well-written and conversational. Information is pared down into consumable chunks, and each chapter is generally only a few pages long so it's easy to pick up, read a little, and put back down. There's a bit of a vibe/tone of a sleazy car-salesman to Sonmez's writing, you sort of occasionally feel like you're listening to a Tony Robbins self-help lecture, there were multiple times when I sort of felt like I was taking advice from a douchebag. Later, on page 334, the author includes a few pictures of himself from his male-modeling days and confirms, yep, you're reading the words of a douchebag.
Tone/eyerolling notwithstanding, the book contains tons of useful advice and practical information. There's a large amount of stuff that should probably be taken with a grain of salt, especially regarding finances because the author seems to think he's in a position to give financial advice due to "retiring" at 33 years old, but includes a section on how he accomplished this that basically boils down to "I got really really lucky" and even includes a bit of "I'm a Christian and I was rewarded for my tithing". He also rented gumball machines for a while. Er, what?
In any case, I highly recommend this book to software developers, particularly the section on Finances and, if you've never seen it in another book, the sections on Career and Marketing Yourself.
An nguyen (2/5)
I read about 1/4 of the book before I had to finally throw in the towel.
The author seems like a nice person but a lot of his credentials seem questionable at best. He has a lot of things to brag about throughout the course of the book but it's hard to believe a lot of the time.
He doesn't come across as an expert at all. The book covers such a wide range of advice and topics with such little depth that there is hardly any useful or practical information that can be scavenged from it. In fact, I feel like a lot of the advice given is just parroted from other sources the author isn't citing.
The author just doesn't come across as an authoritative source of information. Many important topics are skimmed across and add zero value to the book at all. This feels like one of those books where the author wrote out the table of contents first and then just hammered them away one by one for completion's sake.
However, the topic of the book is an extremely interesting one and a niche that deserves to be explored more in-depth by someone more qualified.