Michael Lopp is the person behind the blog 'Rands in Repose', which explains the blog-like feel of this book. It may be presented as if it's a coherent guide to a career in the software industry. But it's clearly just an edited collection of articles on topics related to career, career management, and a management career. This is not really a weakness, but it's not always a strength, either. The book sometimes lacks flow.

A bigger weakness is that few of the articles really lead to any conclusion. Most will get you thinking about your own career or situation. This is good. Some also make solid suggestions for how be successful. This is better. But not all do. And even those that do are most relevent within the specific context of California's Silicon Valley during the first decade or so of the 21st century. In an industry that's always changing, career management is just as volatile.

The strength of the book comes in the voice of the author, Michael Lopp or Rands. He strikes a friendly, beleaguered tone that helps the reader identify with the situations and with the nuggets of advice being offered. Even though the advice is often more implied than spoonfed, I think most software developers will find something in here to help them in their working life, whether they are an individual contributor or a manager (or on their way to being a manager). Just read with a your own good judgement intact and use the articles as jumping off points for personal reflection. ( )

Or Nerds: Why They Are All Special Snowflakes. ( )

This book was a great read for a long plane flight. There's some really good ifnormation for individuals who often interview potential employees, as well as some all-round decent advice for your average software developer. ( )

The sub-title for this book is missing a word. It needs to be "The Software Developer's Manager's Career Handbook". I realize that's awkward, but that's really what this book is.

Had that been the subtitle, it might have gotten three stars or three and a half stars instead of two and a half.

It wasn't a horrible read, but it feel a little flat. Most of the chapters revolve around managing and Rand's personal experience. I like the blog, but in the end I would have a hard time recommending this book to too many people except the fledgling manager of a software engineering team. There's small snippets that seem directed at people just starting the career, but it really comes to just a few pages and I suspect more information can be found on the blog.

Aside from the issue of ambiguity of target audience for the book, there's are also issues with flow. The layout seemed weird. I like the parts on interviews, but then it jumps to management. Then the final chapters talk a bit about beginnings. (Maybe that could have come at the beginning?). More than once I'd start getting interested in the topic only to have it abruptly end as the book would switch tracks.

Some of my disconnect from the book may just be that I don't fall into the typical patterns of a software developer in silicon valley. I wouldn't know because I've never worked there. Instead, I work in a large academic environment. On some projects I'm the only developer in a room of 12 people. Othertimes I'm running trying to get the web servers up. It's really sounds like a cross between how Rands describes a start-up and an established company.

Some of my experiences certainly can be found in the book. For example, We're in the third wave of people leaving. Rands talks about this, but he just generally describes the phenomenon. However, I didn't get a feel for what the heck to do about the problem from a low-level non-manager perspective. Should I bail? What can I do to alleviate the stress? How will this impact my career as a software developer? It seems to boil down to "that stinks. here's how some people react." Lovely, but what advice do you have to give about what people tried and what happened?

Some of his personality descriptions, including the "nerd" that much of the book is addressed to fell flat for me. This is a bit odd because on the whole his observations of other people's personalities or aspects of personality/communication/issues seemed pretty much on the mark.

So...if you're a manager, skim it. I read through all of it because the writing was generally good, but in retrospect I wish I had stopped looking for nuggets about halfway through and just read the part about interviews. ( )

This book by long time Apple engineering manager, as well as startup employee, Michael Lopp is a guide to how to manage geeks. That wasn't really what I was expecting -- which is sort of the inverse. I was hoping for a book about how to be a geek who has to deal with management. This book helps with that, by offering the inverse perspective, but I'd still like to see a book from my direction.

The book is well written, in a conversational and sometimes profane manner (a comment I see others make about his other book "Managing Humans"). I think that's ok in this context, where it feels as if Michael is having a personal conversation with you the reader. An overly formal tone here would cause the content to be much more boring, and its already dry enough.

I'm not sure I agree with everything said in the book, but the first half resonated especially strongly with me.

http://www.stillhq.com/book/Michael_Lopp/Being_Geek.html ( )