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Being Geek
by
Michael Lopp
Is it time to become a manager? Nest and vest? Join that start-up? Tell your boss he's a jerk? Resign in disgust? As a software engineer, at some point you realize that there's much more to your career than dealing with code. Author Michael Lopp recalls his own make-or-break moments with Silicon Valley giants such as Apple, Borland, Netscape, and Symantec in Being Geek --...more
Kindle Edition
Published
(first published July 21st 2010)
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I think the author's description of this book holds - it is mean as much as a cover-to-cover read as it is a reference guide to return to again and again. It covers all of the basics required to work in development (as far as my own experience relates) and then some.
My biggest gripe with this book was that it sometimes didn't make sense. Certain chapters were clear and concise, for example the chapter outlining the author's method of organizing himself for the day. I cannot say the same about c...more
My biggest gripe with this book was that it sometimes didn't make sense. Certain chapters were clear and concise, for example the chapter outlining the author's method of organizing himself for the day. I cannot say the same about c...more
A supposed career handbook, with little relevance to my career. The author has worked at large corporations (including Netscape) and small startups, but his idea of a startup is 80 employees. That's my idea of a large company. He also assumes a kind of corporate culture that I hope is obsolete: The kind where you have a week to prepare for the Big Meeting, the kind where you live and die by PowerPoint. In my career, I never see slides.
Lopp advises the reader on job-searching, but it's a style of...more
Lopp advises the reader on job-searching, but it's a style of...more
Being Geek offers us geeks and nerds a one-stop location to figure out the best way to go about a career search. While it's geared more to specifically IT related positions, those of us with a geeky mindset will appreciate the insights and tips offered by Lopp.
In the introduction, Lopp states that the majority of concepts and chapters in the book were ones from his blog - Rands in Repose. I had never read the blog, so don't know how similar/different it is from that venue to the printed on paper...more
In the introduction, Lopp states that the majority of concepts and chapters in the book were ones from his blog - Rands in Repose. I had never read the blog, so don't know how similar/different it is from that venue to the printed on paper...more
I really enjoy Michael Lopp's writing. It makes me feel like the chaos of working with software is not an end-of-the-world experience, but the norm. And in that case, there's no need to fix it or escape from it, and the real solution is to learn to live within it. Hearing Lopp's stories of living within it are helpful, and give me an idea of what is, or may be, expected.
Lopp cuts through the nonsense and focuses on reality, and I respect that.
I am not at all sure that I share his view that a man...more
Lopp cuts through the nonsense and focuses on reality, and I respect that.
I am not at all sure that I share his view that a man...more
I finally finished Being Geek by Michael Loop. I started this book about 2 months or so ago. First off I got it on my Kindle and for some reason I couldn't get the page numbers to show up. The book is 300+ pages long, so it is pretty beefy. As you can see, I said "finally". That would infer that it took a really long time to read. In my mind, this book was not a quick read at all. However, that doesn't mean it was a bad book.
I don't remember exactly who recommended this book to me. I think I saw...more
I don't remember exactly who recommended this book to me. I think I saw...more
I've long been a huge fan of Michael Lopp's blog, Rands in Repose. Though many of the chapters in this book started as posts on that blog, they have been brought together into a wonderful cohesive whole which acts as an essential life handbook for any geek.
Focused primarily on work life, it guides you through all aspects of your career, from starting up quickly in a new gig, to surviving the vagaries of the tech industry day-today and finally knowing when to move on and how to get that next job...more
Focused primarily on work life, it guides you through all aspects of your career, from starting up quickly in a new gig, to surviving the vagaries of the tech industry day-today and finally knowing when to move on and how to get that next job...more
Excellent book for anybody working for a career, not just for geeks. My only complaint is that a lot of the text is stuff I've already read in either Managing Humans or on the Rands in Repose blog, which is expected since most of the book's content is a revised version of the blog, at least that's what it seems to me. If you've already read everything that Rands has written, you'll be skimming through a lot of this book.
But it's still a good book with lots of advice that I try to pass on to peop...more
But it's still a good book with lots of advice that I try to pass on to peop...more
Lopp's prior book, Managing Humans, changed my life. I learned how to manage myself, as well as others, and successfully made some huge changes to my personal and professional life. Oddly enough, this book is geared toward geek /employees/. It should be required reading for the most aspie of engineers to teach the skill of managing up, I suppose. Many chapters are spent describing geek tendencies toward gamification and ruleset deconstruction, but I'm not sure to whom those chapters are geared –...more
This book contains many astute observations about the life of a software developer combined with practical advice about how to approach your career. The book touches on aspects like interviewing for a job, office politics, transitioning to new responsibilities like becoming a manager, how to manage your time, dealing with crises, and thinking about when it's time to find a new job. I found the book did a great job of helping me think about the three questions it lays out at the beginning: What a...more
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...more
A bigger weakness is that few of the articles really lead to any conclusion...more
I have been reading Michael's blog, Rands in Repose for years. Andy and I discussed the latest ones over lunch.
Most if not all chapters come from blog posts usually come with additional polishing. For example, one of my favorites, The Nerd Handbook, is converted from a blog post to Chapter 23 with an introduction on how it should be handed to someone who needs to understand people like me plus an introduction for the recipient.
The best of: Chapter 8: The Culture Chart - "Culture is the undercur...more
Most if not all chapters come from blog posts usually come with additional polishing. For example, one of my favorites, The Nerd Handbook, is converted from a blog post to Chapter 23 with an introduction on how it should be handed to someone who needs to understand people like me plus an introduction for the recipient.
The best of: Chapter 8: The Culture Chart - "Culture is the undercur...more
Карьерный рост, поиск новой работы, разные типы боссов, как обосновать свою цену, как взаимодействовать с коллегами, что делать, если ты стал менеджером, как работать на коммандным духом, как понять, что вокруг тебя начинается пиздец - вот короткий список тем этой книги.
Но лучшее в этой книге - это то, что она не успокаивает, а наоборот дарит тебе тревогу.
Она напоминает о том, что время идет и если ты ежедневно достигаешь успеха - это плохой знак.
Знак, который говорит тебе: чувак, похоже ты пере...more
Но лучшее в этой книге - это то, что она не успокаивает, а наоборот дарит тебе тревогу.
Она напоминает о том, что время идет и если ты ежедневно достигаешь успеха - это плохой знак.
Знак, который говорит тебе: чувак, похоже ты пере...more
Being Geek is an interesting read. Michael Lopp is able to capture that thought in your head and articulate it on paper. But that only works so many times.
Some of the chapters in this book are so good and so matching my experience that I wrote some notes on the side while reading the book. Other chapters, I don't even know what he's talking about.
Most chapters revolve around their title. The author sums up a certain situation - which is the center of this chapter - in the chapter title. To expla...more
Some of the chapters in this book are so good and so matching my experience that I wrote some notes on the side while reading the book. Other chapters, I don't even know what he's talking about.
Most chapters revolve around their title. The author sums up a certain situation - which is the center of this chapter - in the chapter title. To expla...more
It's great. I've been reading RandsInRepose some time now, and while the book is a well organized collection of blog posts that have appeared on the site (as well as some new stuff), having it in book form does help create a more cohesive brain space.
Lots of great stuff to implement upon finishing and it's worth highlighting passages that apply to a situation that you deal with often or plan on working toward.
Recommended.
Lots of great stuff to implement upon finishing and it's worth highlighting passages that apply to a situation that you deal with often or plan on working toward.
Recommended.
A little more bland than Managing Humans very much more of the same.
This book attempts to provide a selection of essays to help a geek in their life and career, but frankly unless you fit Lopp's specific definition of a geek a lot of the advice flows by you.
Written from the perspective of the workaholic crisis manager in a tech community with no values on non-tech and non-work activities, it was somewhat difficult to complete. The Rands blog with it's occasional posts are much more digestible.
Bu...more
This book attempts to provide a selection of essays to help a geek in their life and career, but frankly unless you fit Lopp's specific definition of a geek a lot of the advice flows by you.
Written from the perspective of the workaholic crisis manager in a tech community with no values on non-tech and non-work activities, it was somewhat difficult to complete. The Rands blog with it's occasional posts are much more digestible.
Bu...more
Quite possibly the most disorganized book I have read. Author thinks it's cute to have short and meaningless headings that most cannot relate to. The author made some good points but I often find myself unable to scan through the pages quickly to locate back what I read previously. The editing seems abrupt. The author has good experiences to share but they're buried all over, delivered in tiny jabs. I expected more.
If you need a book to tell you to "do the things you say you'll do", then this one's as adequate as the next.
The author's clearly a smart guy, but having read a few professional development books I've come to realise it's the authors who are the fulfilled individuals earning the money and(probably) doing what they chose to you're just another average Joe who's bought and is reading another book!
The author's clearly a smart guy, but having read a few professional development books I've come to realise it's the authors who are the fulfilled individuals earning the money and(probably) doing what they chose to you're just another average Joe who's bought and is reading another book!
Not as insightful as I had hoped. Certainly would be an excellent read for anyone coming out of college with no "real world" experience to give them a leg up on understanding some of the dynamics to expect. Section about the personality of a geek was the best part. Made me laugh out loud as I read it because it hit so close to home. Must reading for any geek's spouse.
The title of this book is quite deceptive. Chapters aren't equal. But since its just a collections of essays, I expected this.
Michael in most of the chapters talks smelly corporate bullshit which isn't interesting to me at all.
The writing style of Lopp is awesome. Short sentences, sense of humor and being nerd himself... he does a great job of gripping me as a reader.
Not bad at all but could be much better.
Michael in most of the chapters talks smelly corporate bullshit which isn't interesting to me at all.
The writing style of Lopp is awesome. Short sentences, sense of humor and being nerd himself... he does a great job of gripping me as a reader.
Not bad at all but could be much better.
I enjoyed the book, but I kept having a nagging sensation that while a lot of this is useful information reading it from cover to cover isn't the way to do it. I think your best bet is to read the table of contents and skim everything lightly and zone in on what's nagging you the most at work. Read a chapter or so and apply what you've learned.
Reads like a collection of blog entries, and most of them are interesting and humorous. But some entries seem disconnected from the whole, and others seem (to me) to over-generalize the geek population -- usually when I feel like I don't fit the generalization and that would be bad for me, so possibly a reader issue.
This is one person's view of the "Geek" career, no more, no less. While this book is well-written and I don't feel that it was a waste of my time, it assumes that every "Geek" is just like the author. This is a fun-to-read autobiography, not a career manual.
it's really a reference manual, so parts of it didn't apply to my career right now and thus were hard to appreciate (and therefore felt perhaps overdone). however, for the things i could relate to, the commentary was spot on and there were some real gems.
The best advice you can get from the book is "don't read crap", although it's not directly in it. It's annoying, obvious, too american-centered and almost useless. Seems like a waste of time, I managed to get through the first third of it.
This book was a great read for a long plane flight. There's some really good information for individuals who often interview potential employees, as well as some all-round decent advice for your average software developer.
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Most of the material here is from rands in repose. Which is okay, but it's not the end to end handbook that it seems to be billed as.
Great advice, including material not on Rands/Micheal Lopp's blog before. Best read in small doses, not all at once.
Excellent handbook for engineers. Not all of the material will be relevant at any one time but if you keep the book around to refer back to it'll pay dividends.
"Being Geek" is a great read. It's very blunt, funny and insightful. Overall, it's helpful to see the perspectives from different positions within an organization. There were many times when I found myself nodding along and yet also learning a few things. It was a nice touch to leave the reader feeling motivated in the last chapter. It wasn't preachy but just very honest and helpful. I'd recommend this to anyone in tech.
Also, if you get a chance, you have to see Lopp speak - he's a riot and easy...more
Also, if you get a chance, you have to see Lopp speak - he's a riot and easy...more
I loved this book. It really is a great career book for another in the web development field.
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Oct 04, 2010 06:34am