Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual

I've bought this book. I've also bought another book - "The Complete Software Developer's Guide" by John Sonmez. I found them both awesome. Usually, people which are starting with Software Development are the way too far from having a complete picture. They just decide "ok, I will be the programmer and money will start pouring in". It takes years and years to see what other aspects of software development are "in the game".John uses a simple style of eye-opening explanations of various topics which are so important but you don't have a clue about it. I am a very long time in Software Development, but I simply either didn't think that some aspects are so important or I thought "ah, what a hell... who needs this anyway.. I am a programmer... why I have to even think about the fitness or some similar things". As our job is mostly "sit and code" the whole day long... I made a grave mistake. I was so out of the shape that I start feeling some really handicaps in my life (not just job related). I wasn't in a shape to think clearly or to focus on anything... I wasn't able to work... not as a programmer... but any job So get yourself in a good shape is much more important than most of the people think.And you decided you will be a programmer and you will just go to some company and knock on the door and say "Hey, hi there! I am a programmer... where I can sit and code"... life doesn't work that way.Here in this book, you can actually inform yourself with good advice from how to start to how to become awesome.I follow John's blog, youtube videos, books, courses... for a long time now and in my humble opinion he is an awesome guy and he influenced my work and various decisions regarding my work in many ways. You don't have to believe me... just go check his blog... see some of his videos.. you will see that he is an honest man, who will provide great advice without some fancy talk... he is just a normal guy like you or me... and you will have a feeling like you enjoy sitting and talking with a good friend who has so much experience in this field and he is willing to share it with you.You can watch 200 Youtube videos... but here, you have collected in one place great materiel... just look at the headings: Career, Marketing yourself, Learning, Productivity, Financial, Fitness and Mindset!I think I've said it enough... I think that this book is definitely worth buying and you will see for yourself.

John Sonmez is a multi-talented superhuman if I’ve ever seen one. From socials skills to finance to tech to marketing to fitness, he not only covers all of those topics but has achieved excellence in them himself. I rarely say this about someone: if all humans were half as capable as John, we’d be living in a different world. With all that said, it’s a great book and serves as a “how-to” for many aspects of life. It’s even meta enough to talk about the process of writing the book itself. I’m not aware of any other books that cover so much ground, so concisely. Buy it.

There were some bits of useful information in this book, but overall it was mostly fairly basic, sometimes even common sense, advice. If you're totally green and young, then this is probably a worthwhile read, but if you've been in the industry or lived life for a time, you'd be better off spending your time reading another book that is more in depth.Some of the advice and writing did offer value such as some specific tools the author uses for automating tasks and concrete examples of how to dodge questions in a salary negotiation to your advantage. There was also some value in the last chapters on fitness with concrete examples of dieting and fasting methods that the author has used successfully. The last several chapters were the most valuable for me.Outside of a few of those tips, the book had mostly generic advice that wasn't very insightful, but good advice to be sure. For example in the Financial related chapter, he says things like - "make the most profitable investments you can." Thanks for the tip? There are more than a few self evident pieces of advice like that throughout the book that kind of leave you feeling a bit disappointed.At the end of the day it does what a lot of good self help books do, which is to get the gears in your mind going and inspire you with success stories.

Me parece un libro estupendo. Te puedes leer los capítulos en el orden que quieras y te inserta en cosas de la vida muy útiles, que te pueden hacer mejor persona.

I've had a long career in software development (20 years) and John's work here clearly covers many areas that I've had to deal with, both as a beginner in the industry and a seasoned professional.This book is perfect for the programmer's brain, each chapter has a clear goal and gets straight to the point with actionable steps you can take that will yield results. There's none of the filler and fluff that tends to only add pages to other self-improvement style books. An added bonus is that the topics go far beyond the professional skills and how to navigate a workplace environment and gets deep into things like diet, fitness, motivation and focus which will lead to having a better life overall.

I have already listened to the first edition of this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. And now I can't wait to read the additional information that I know will be invaluable. If you're looking for a book to learn programming, this isn't it. However, this book offers something that I have not seen any other book do. It not only shows you how to survive as a software developer but how to succeed at it. John is able to motivate the reader to take the extra steps and go the extra mile to be able to stand out from the crowd and grow in their career and life. This book helped me advance from an employee to a freelance developer, however, I think that the information in it is just as useful for someone relatively new in their career.

In the past, I used to believe that the only way to get a promotion is flattering your manager. I read the first edition of the book and also following John's content for the last 4 years. Rather than the raw content, it changed my viewpoint of how I see things now. The book has lots of useful content, which you won't learn at college.It discussed money management, how to learn, fitness, and most importantly, how to market yourself as a software developer, which is very important in today's oversaturated market. I was unemployed for 10 months after passing out from college, John's advice helped me to get my first job, and increased my remuneration 3 times in just 1 year as a fresher. That too in this covid-hit year.TLDR, his stuff works.

John takes a completely different approach to teaching you about software development in that he places the onus of responsibility on the reader to invest in themselves throughout all stages of their career in order to become a better person and ultimately a better programmer. One of John’s basic premises for the idea behind Soft Skills is that even though there is widespread perceived notion that software development is primarily programmers writing code all day and not having to worry about anyone else is actually completely misplaced. Rather developers produce software in order to make people’s lives better and easier so we as software developers have to be fundamentally people person orientated. In order to do this then we need to invest time in ourselves firstly through increasing what value we can offer employers and through better marketing of those particular values we have to offer. John writes clearly and to the point in a concise and informative way. Each chapter is reasonably short with handy actionable points at the end of every chapter again putting the onus on the reader to take action to further themselves along their chosen career path. One of the additional new chapters in this well revised Second Edition include how to set up and manage your own YouTube channel which is timely in light of the increased demand of online self-promoted video content. A excellent and well resourced book that provides a huge amount of inspiration to reach your next career goals.