Domain-driver design distilled
by Vaughn Vernon
I've found this book very insightful. It talks about modeling the application based on domain or real business terms and operations. My development experience slowly led me to the same conclusion. DDD is very valuable technique and it should be more talked in the software industry.
I can't remember seeing the DDD concept in the book yet. While the book's content is great, the delivery is horrible. I found it to have a bad flow, being too long and slow at times and often confusing. The more appropriate title would be "DDD Half-Distilled". I feel the content could be cut in half without significant drop in value.
Handbook for new employees
by Valve
I've picked this book for the second book club meeting. It is short and publicly available. The book provides interesting insight into the company, which is successfully operating with flat structure for 20 years. It's so different so it's hard to believe it.
The most surprising part for me was about hiring as it is considered the most important task in the company. I agree with such approach, but unfortunately it's not so common.
Few other things I've liked: T-shape people, peer reviews, cabals, stack ranking and compensation.
The book gives a good overview of the culture. I really want to know more details how everything is setup. That's where the real insight.
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
by Jeff Sutherland
Great books and great methodology. It would be even better if the author didn’t oversell it. The way he presents it, is like he treated all diseases on the planet. After a while of such praising of his work you start to question his credibility.
The author made a good point. You can't significantly change the performance of a person in a short time. However you can significantly affect the team. Everything should be seen as a system. People are just the participants in the game.
There are no bad people, but bad systems
The book made me think of Nazism. Its success can be explained by the system that was in place. Most german people didn't want to kill anyone on the individual level. However they played their cog role in the complex Nazism machine.
Anyway, back to the book. Scrum is focused on providing the basic rules for the process in the team. It prioritises efficiency, uncertainty and change. I can't think how those rules could be distilled even more. That make me think the scrum would be around for a long time.
I would recommend this book to everybody. But don’t be put off by the writer. The product does not change because of the bad salesperson.
Smarter Faster Better
by Charles Duhigg
This was an audiobook, and I did an experiment with it. I’ve listened to this book three times in a row. The goal was to see how the second and the third rounds would be different.
After the first round, I liked the book. Each point is backed by real life example. That makes the listening a joy.
The second round wasn’t much different. I’ve picked up some missed details. However overall understanding of the book is only improved by 10%.
For the last round I created a mind map while listening to it. To my surprise that made a huge difference. The mind map forced me to become an active listener. The overall understanding doubled. That shocked me because that was the third time I’ve listened to it.
My favorite part is about goal setting. There are ‘smart goals’ and ‘stretch goals’. Smart goals are achievable and measurable. These are your everyday goals. They prioritise efficiency of what you are already doing. In contrast stretch goals are about the direction.
To better understand them, think of the running analogy. Smart - is how fast you are running. Stretch - is where you are running to.
While the book has a great content, it feels disjointed. It would be nice to combine all knowledge into a recipe to follow. I guess it’s up to the reader to do so.
Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations
by Dan Ariely
Yet another interesting book from Dan Ariely about behavioural psychology. The book talks what motivates us at work. It feels that book heavily overlaps with author's other books. It's good to remind about those things anyway.
Dead Souls
by Nikolai Gogol
I decided to read some Russian classics. The book is about people and society. The book dates to the 19th century. However, it is still relevant today. The social aspect of the society did not evolve as quickly as the technology.
Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High
by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan
Crucial Conversations is a very practical book. You can apply knowledge in everyday life straight after reading it. As you probably know our life is not always vanilla. Quite often we need to deal with people who completely disagree with our opinion. Whether it be your boss, partner, neighbour or co-worker. This book teaches you how to have those conversations without alienating the relationship. The book is very insightful and I feel I need to read it again to better understand it.
I definitely recommend the book for everybody and I wish everybody to have a read of it.
Lincoln
by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny, and Ron McMillan
It’s loooooong, very long, 30+ hours long. I can’t count the number of times I thought to stop listening to it but somehow I managed to finish it.
Such level of details is acceptable at court when creating a criminal record. Let me ask you, would you be interesting in reading the criminal records? Nobody cares who said what, to who and at what minute. The readers want a story, a good story with overview of what’s happening. Unfortunately this book pollutes a good story with unnecessary details.
One advice to you is to listen to this audiobook on x1.5 speed, I started with x1.25, and it wasn’t fast enough. You get bored faster than your patience for the author’s mumbles.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
by Yuval Noah Harari
First of all, great book and now the details. I thought it was a book about biology and how humans evolved from monkeys. It definitely has a lot of it, but that’s only a small portion of the book.
While I was reading it I realised the book 100% proves its title. Think about some time in year 3000 or perhaps when aliens colonise the earth. They would want to study the creatures which were living on the planet. I think this book speaks about us more than anything. The author manages to distance himself and you truly think it’s just another history book.
It is a pretty long book, at times it could be boring because of the details, but only sometimes. This is one of the best book I’ve read and I definitely would read it again.
99 bottles of OOP
by Sandi Metz & Katrina Owen
This book is very hyped this year. To summarise it's a detailed refactoring tutorial. It could also be called "Refactoring 1-on-1 for dummies".
I like that it goes through long and tedious process of proper TDD. I don't like for the exactly same reason and had to skim through it. People who are not familiar with TDD should find it very useful.
The book was a good detailed reminder of the refactoring process for me. However I wouldn't recommend it to myself.
Growing Rails Applications in Practice
by Henning Koch and Thomas Eisenbarth
A quick read which I would recommend to every mid rails developer and higher. It's common for developers to outgrow their tools. Rather than learn new skills, people start to blame the tools. Your heard those people: "Rails does not scale", "ActiveRecord is antipattern" etc. The books show few patterns which allow to build big Rails application with only small changes to standard 'Rails way'.
The book recommends active_type gem. I would recommend other gem active_interaction instead. active_interaction gem is more superior in my opinion and I've successfully used it in multiple projects over the last 2 years.
As for the CSS structuring, BEM is definitely a good choice to get control over your styles. Only issue with it, if not enforced it loosed its value, so every developer should be very diciplined to follow BEM.
There is only 1 option which is better than BEM, it's css modules. I only used it with ember.js, not Rails though. It automates steps that you have to do with BEM. However css modules require deep integration into the tools you use, which makes it harder to bring into the project.
Sprint
by Jake Knapp
The book talks about the process of running a 5 day long test to validate your idea/product. You might have an idea to start new business or how to engage your existing customers, whatever it is you should do as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible.
The book provides a very detailed step by step guide how to run the full spring as well as explains why things are done the certain way.
While books tries to prove itself with examples from big or popular companies, it feel a bit cheap because success of the company doesn't depend on the success of the product. It's way more complex than that.
I'll be very interested to try it in practice. In theory it should work very well.
The Art of Readable Code
by Dustin Boswell & Trevor Foucher
This quick and easy to read book I would recommend to every developer. It talks about all the little things which are often neglected and what developers deal with every day. Naming methods and variables, extracting business logic, code comments, aesthetics and code readability.
This knowledge is language agnostic and the best mastered over reading lots of code, or reading this book :)
The Inner Game of Tennis
by Timothy Gallwey
That was a lucky pick to read after "The Brain's Way of Healing". That book talks about unconscious part of the brain. It does make a lot of sense and I've drew a lot of parallels with the "The Flow" book. To put it simply, we are animals and millions years of evolution didn't disappear when we've got consciousness.
When we are leaning something we actually teaching our unconscious part of the brain, while consciousness is there to guide that learning process.
Conscious and unconscious, this is just a theory to explain our body, and probably not very accurate. But it is enough to start benefit from it. That book shows how little we know about ourselves.
The Brain's Way of Healing
by Norman Doidge
This an amazing book. Just like the previous book "The Brain that Changes Itself" this one also blew my mind. It's very long book and I think I've lost my interest twice and had to start again from the start few months after. But once i've got beyond the first 30% about Parkinson Disease, I was hooked.
The book talks about how brain stimulation through our sensor could affect it. That includes voice, light and touch. That's probably my favourite part.
Anyway, I've read it over a month ago now and my excitement already dimmed out. That's a great book and I would recommend it to everyone.
Remote
by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Just like the book I've read a week before - "Rework", this book also jumped the queue.
So are you working remote or still going to the office five days a week?
If you are working at the office, you might need to read this book, to know why it make sense to switch to remote or ocasional remote work. The book addresses some questions and concerns about remote work. There are definitely more pros than cons to working remotely, however it's important to know and understand the difficulties that arise and which are previously were unknown to office workers.
If you are already working remotely, you'll probably find this book as a reflection of your own experience. I've been working remotely for over 5 years and gone through the exactly same struggles described in the book. I guess the only difference the book looks at it with a bit more scientific perspective.
I feel the book could be even shorter, few ideas has been repeated multiple times through the book. If you want to know everything about remote work this book is definitely would be the first goto option.
Rework
by founders of 37signals
I had to use my credits on Audible.com and didn't know what to buy. This book was on my to read list, but somewhere at the bottom of it. And thanks to very small collection of audiobooks this book jumped the queue.
The first thing that surprised and warned me at the same time how small the book is. It is relatively short and is less than 3 hours long. In comparison the other book I'm reading, "The brain's way of healing", is almost 15 hours long. But there is a good reason why it is like that. Authors intentionally cut on the content as it's the same principle they use at work, which was described in the book.
To sum up the book, it could also be called "Rethink". Rethink things that you are doing at work. Just because something was done in a particular way for a long time does not mean it is a good idea to keep doing it.
The book summarises years of work at 37signal, company which indeed swims agains the flow and decided not to follow many established work practices.
Can't say I've learnt much, as I've heard many of those things before, but nevertheless I've enjoyed this book.
Update: I re-read it in 2024
Lean Startup
by Eric Ries
It's an interesting book which summed up a lot of my experience working in startups. It's important to mention that the book focuses on testing new ideas rather than improving existing business.
Alright, so you have a new business idea and nobody has done it before, what's next? In short accept that you are wrong and your ideas are crap and proceed from there. Such mindset forces you to focus on feedback. Even if you found great market fit with 80% accuracy you still need feedback to make the adjustments.
The whole process should be focused on getting the market feedback and learning from it. The challenge is to get it as fast as possible and as cheap as possible. The sooner you fail the faster you will learn and the faster you will move on to a better one.
As a professional software developer I've found such approach very hard, because as a professional I'm responsible of quality, which I had to ignore if it conflicts with the delivery speed.
Also I've found my peers who don't understand that principle of growing new ideas, set the wrong priorities on tasks. They focus on the tasks which have medium to low business value, which is still not acceptable as that distracts you from the low hanging fruits.
I've also liked the "vanity metrics". Metrics which has no real meaning but makes you feel good by creating an illusion. So many businesses keep doing it. So true.
Lean Startup book was written from the author’s experience and I can personally backup most of the things mentioned in the book with my personal experience. That's why I've found it very useful as I see it as an experience exchange.
I'd say Lean Startup is "must read" only if you are starting new business, otherwise you are better off reading books on improving efficiency or quality of your existing business.
Links:
Atlas Shrugged
by Ayn Rand
Great novel, it's one of those which I could not wait to listen again. The audiobook was done with amazing quality, it's not a plain reader reading the book, but with different voices and sound effects. It's like watching a movie without a picture. Very cool. It's a completely new level of the audiobooks.
Novel itself has a lot of meaning and I think shows world quite accurately. I was enjoying every moment while listening to it.
On the negative sides, there are few obvious issues which break the flow of the story for me. I've got three:
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Very often and out of the context the different characters say "Who is John Galt?". Since it's out of the context it's very clear the author added it to glue the ending. That completely breaks the flow. Such out of the context sentences work as a wake up call for the readers immersed into the story.
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Love relationship is very unrealistic. It's hard for me to believe that multiple man who finally met the true love of their life could not care and say something like - ah cool, no problem. I love you more than anything in this world, but i'm cool to be friends. We can live and see each other everyday. I will love you forever but you can be with that other guy.
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The final speech from John Galt over the radio was waaaay too long. It felt like that speech was written first and the rest of the story was added as an addition. The speech repeats the same idea many times and could be much shorter or broken into multiple parts during the story.
The novel had a big influence for people, that's why it spiked my interest to read it. Now I know the story, I'm interested to see what was the influence.
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
The book can be summed up as 'Be there where you are'. It's a good reminder to stop running in life and stop regretting about the past. Just open your eyes and look around, the life is beautiful.
The book mentions that when people get serious health issues only then they start to realise the present and finally start enjoying it. I'm just thinking can I simulate that feeling without getting health issues. Think about and imaging you have 1 more day to live, how would you feel today? And like that every day.
Overall book is written in very abstract way, which I found very hard to conceptualise. It has very few examples which would be very helpful to understand all those good sounding words.
Dao of Life / Дао Жизни
by Irina Hakamada / Ирина Хакамада
Change is the only constant
It's very light and quick to read. The book talks from the women's perspective most of the time, but is relevant to everybody.
The main point from the book for me was to be flexible and enjoy the life. Life is too short to worry or be upset.
The book is full of advices and experiences from Irina's life.
That includes how to teach kids, be public person, how to grow career as a woman, have strong and happy family and others.
The book is short and straight to the point, while it's still very personal.
Kitchen
by Banana Yoshimoto
Interesting novel about relationship. It was interesting to listen (audiobook) but I feel like I didn't get the point.
On wikipedia it says there are two stories, but the audiobook I've listened had about 5. Not sure if that's new additions or just other novels.
Советы Олигарха (трилогия)
Сергей Кареев
Прочитал где-то 2 года назад. Быстро и легко читается и есть что подчеркнуть хоть советы и правда нацелены на сливки общества.
Five Love Languages
by Gary Chapman
This is great book which I've read multiple times. First many years ago and last time about two years ago. Teaches you that relationships are hard work and not be to taken for granted.
Живи легко
Меняться начинаешь, только поняв, что смертельно устал смертельно уставать.
Все на свете можно испортить излишним старанием… Петь надо так, будто тебе не нужны деньги, любить – так, будто не знаешь боли, танцевать – так, будто никто на тебя не смотрит… Чтобы получалось, надо делать все не умом, а сердцем.
-- Сэтчел Пей
Психологическое айкидо
Когда тебя бьют, не уворачивайся, а подставь плечо и используй силу удара чтобы опрокинуть противника и положить его на лопатки.
Средство от бедности
Люди разные.
Мир не обязан быть удобным.
Не бойтесь совершенства - вам его не достичь.
Лучше быть последним на растущем рынке, чем первым на убывающем.
- Дорогой, у твоего сына будет ребенок.
- Это его проблемы
- Но от твоей любовницы.
- Это ее проблемы.
- А что же ты собираешься делать?
- Это мои проблемы.
- Мне все надоело, и я от тебя ухожу.
- Это твои пробелмы.
Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life, Second Edition
book by Marshall B. Rosenberg
This is one the best books I've ever read. I've read few dozens of self improvement and psychology books, but did not have a clue what this book is talking about. I would recommend it to everyone, including teenagers.
I did a small experiment and after reading each chapter I've created a summary list of highlights, first as a lesson for me to revisit each chapter and short list I could come back to in the future.
