How I'm Becoming a Programmer
summary
A practical manifesto for career-long craft: three concrete goals—be happy, keep growing, do good—with specific tactics: use the rule of three to decide what technologies to study, set a six‑month calendar reminder labelled comfortable? to force change, and treat mentorship by matching guidance to Dreyfus learning stages (novice needs rules, competent needs situational cues). Examples and claims include rewriting Pragmatic Programmer content, a travel‑agent terminal system that ran on 300–1200 baud links, and ethical maxim do no harm.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction
- 2:04Challenging industry norms
- 4:25Defining your professional role
- 6:01Goal 1: Find happiness
- 8:56Goal 2: Continuous learning
- 12:03Goal 3: Creating impact
- 16:52The Dreyfus model of learning
- 23:54Mastery and intuition
- 29:18Internalizing knowledge
- 33:45Where developers fit
- 37:51A plan for growth
- 42:15Ethical responsibility
related talks
45mGrowing old gracefully: on being a career programmer.
40mThe Best Programmer I Know
54mHow to Become Accomplished
31mThe Mediocre Programmer
48mA Personal Philosophy of Excellent Engineering
10mExplains 5 Steps to Get Better at Coding
30mForging Your Path to Senior Developer
45mAvoiding career pitfalls — A well-grounded software engineer