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Skill Up: A Software Developer's Guide to Life and Career

Skill Up: A Software Developer's Guide to Life and Career

By : Jordan Hudgens
4 (2)
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Skill Up: A Software Developer's Guide to Life and Career

Skill Up: A Software Developer's Guide to Life and Career

4 (2)
By: Jordan Hudgens

Overview of this book

This is an all-purpose toolkit for your programming career. It has been built by Jordan Hudgens over a lifetime of coding and teaching coding. It helps you identify the key questions and stumbling blocks that programmers encounter, and gives you the answers to them! It is a comprehensive guide containing more than 50 insights that you can use to improve your work, and to give advice in your career. The book is split up into three topic areas: Coder Skills, Freelancer Skills, and Career Skills, each containing a wealth of practical advice. Coder Skills contains advice for people starting out, or those who are already working in a programming role but want to improve their skills. It includes such subjects as: how to study and understand complex topics, and getting past skill plateaus when learning new languages. Freelancer Skills contains advice for developers working as freelancers or with freelancers. It includes such subjects as: knowing when to fire a client, and tips for taking over legacy applications. Career Skills contains advice for building a successful career as a developer. It includes such subjects as: how to improve your programming techniques, and interview guides and developer salary negotiation strategies.
Table of Contents (5 chapters)
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4
Index

Chapter 46. Following Your Passion – Good or Bad Advice for Developers?

As a developer, should you follow your passion? I hear this term and this advice quite often and I'm not a fan of taking things at face value, so I wanted to look into the concept and review it here.

At a high level, the advice centers around the idea that if you do work in a field that you truly love, you will be happy. Many people point to Steve Job's Stanford commencement speech when he says:

" And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

Following your passion – a case study

While writing and researching this book, I came across Cal Newport's book, So Good They Can't Ignore You, where he took a deep look at Steve Job's life. He shows that if Jobs would have spent his life adhering to the advice of following your passion, he never would have started Apple, but instead would...

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