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Please don't take this the wrong way; I am genuinely curious. As far as I can tell, you've been a professional developer for approximately 2 years. What qualifi

Please don't take this the wrong way; I am genuinely curious. As far as I can tell, you've been a professional developer for approximately 2 years. What qualifies you to instruct people how to manage their dev career, let alone charge $40+ for the advice?

MivLives 6y ago
I'm also curious about this, and interested in a review from someone who has been in the field longer to see how much the advice here rings true. 40 dollars isn't a huge ask for a book, but it's above an impulse buy. [edit] Rearranged some words for clarity
- Swizec 6y ago
  Swyx is legit. The speed at which he established himself as an authority in the React/Javascript world is hella impressive And he’s fresh enough that his advice isn’t enbittered and grizzled yet.
  - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
    I am not downvoting you, but (if GP is accurate) 2 years of professional experience is nothing, and to be an authority is laughable. To say he established himself as a developer marketer, ok, but damn, really? 2 Years? When I started to work 2 years was junior level developer, and now they are authorities?? I quickly checked his writings. I am not trying to put him down, they are ok, but completely different than what I would expect an expert/authority to write. But seems nowadays 50+ tweets a day and 4 blog posts a day are more important than actually, you know, writing good maintainable code.
    - Swizec 6y ago
      You forget the whole React field is like 5 years old. And this book is aimed at beginners, not folks like us with decades in the field.
      - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
        Well, actually 7 years old so there is that. But it doesn't matter if it is react or iOS or prolog. If you think about it, a CS degree, that covers a lot of topics, is minimum 3/4 years. And when you get out of uni you are considered an intern/junior. But now, bootcamps/web tutorials, people think that ater 2 years they become an authority on something. I deal with these people everyday. They know 'react' inside out, but anything higher level (how to organize the freaking code) or how to use any kind of CS algo to solve a problem that isn't in the O(n^n) space because it is 'simple' is beyond them. Which is fine, is something that takes time to learn and know how to use. It took me years. But 'I'm a senior developer' types with 2 years of experience is ridiculous, and we should call them what they are, liars. (not the GP, again, don't know him, talking in general) (I don't think a CS degree is needed to be a software developer)
        Swizec 6y ago
        Ok so why would any of that matter? He’s giving you advice on how to get a senior title fast, not on react or CS or engineering at all. Just the fast title acquisition. Who’s better for that advice? Someone who did it in 2 years or someone who took 10?
        odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
        It matters because he (in my point of view) isn't a senior and is lying about it? Because due to the dynamics of easy money and the lack of developers, you got 2 year bootcamp graduates getting 'senior' titles but being just beyond the junior marker. It matters because right now, we may have a coming recession where all these 'seniors' will see themselves fucked because companies will have more options and these 'seniors' will be too stuck up to realize they should be taking a more junior-ish position. It also matters because I deal with these people all day, that because they read the latest blog post on something think they are experts and sidetrack 15 minute meetings to dribble on that we are doing it wrong and waste an hour of my time.
        deleted 6y ago
  - anothercrudapp 6y ago
    Hi Swyx
acemarke 6y ago
As a bystander but friend of Shawn's, I can say that over the last few years he has demonstrated an incredible ability to quickly learn and master concepts, then pass that information on to others. I've seen him go from someone who didn't know anything about web dev at all, to a master of what's going on with React and its ecosystem. He's added expertise on Svelte and other tools as well. Shawn excels at a lot of "big picture analysis" type thinking (which makes sense given his prior financial background), and I always find his comments and presentations insightful and highly informative. I haven't yet had time to read through this new book due to my own tasks, but based on the blog posts I've seen him write leading up to this, and the preview material he's tweeted, I have full confidence that this book is going to be an excellent resource for other developers. As for the price, Shawn's clearly put a lot of time and effort into writing this. If you have questions about his ability to do so and the likely quality, I'd encourage you to read through some of his blog posts to get a sense of how he writes: https://www.swyx.io/writing/ https://www.swyx.io/writing/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I think GP's point is that I would be similarly skeptical of taking parenting advice "from diapers to diplomas" from someone who hadn't yet had their first-born blow out a birthday candle, regardless of how well-edited or how much effort they put into publishing that advice. To me, it's not about the $40; it's about advice on "the full journey from Code Newbie to Senior Developer" from someone who is probably much closer to the former than the latter.
- jayrice257 6y ago
  Hey, your own "tutorials" and "educational blog" look like total garbage. Maybe that's why you support each other. This guy is possibly qualified to write a bad "book" about marketing, why is this shit on HN
kamaal 6y ago
Haven't read the book, but by reading the table of contents, it does look like it is essays on commonly known topics to most programmers. Stuff like reading books, training frequently, exposure to Machiavellian strategies, perennial interview practice, side projects etc is already known to most programmers who are aware and actively seeking improvement. One thing that I like to see most programmers pay importance to in the future is physical fitness and rest. Mental health would also be a good topic to add. We are a profession where every one wants to win spectacularly or die trying. Or we just over eat and sit our excercise-less bodies to death. A comprehensive programmer nerd's guide to exercise, rest and mental health would be something I'd be interested in reading.
- swyx 6y ago
  i agree! (the final chapter is basically what you said here) unfortunately i need to learn that too before i can write it.
swyx 6y ago
i think its a fair question and you've been very polite about it :) I basically deal with it by being super open about it (it's pretty much the first thing anyone knows about me) and letting people decide if they still want to read me or not. enough do. in a free market, that's plenty. so the question then becomes: what confidence do I have in what I think I know? it comes from 3 places: - Empirical foundation: study and read others. this book has 1419 external links and quotes to advice from people way more credible and established than me. I provide curation and context. - Theoretical foundation: I do my best to ensure what i see in real life is backed up by indisputable logical/psychological axioms. This is important for replicability. - Personal Experience: I apply what I learn to myself. Every weakness can be a strength (funny enough, i spend a whole chapter talking about this). In my case, i've basically made a career out of putting out what i learn as i learn it, before i'm an expert, with the responsible disclaimer that I am not an expert but I do put a ton of work into thinking and research. it's the opposite of "fake it til you make it", its being real that you havent made it yet but you do not let that stop you trying. I am at the exact point where my voice and perspective on things (being a recent beginner) let me explain things to beginners in ways that experts can't. Yes it's uncomfortable af. But you see tremendous growth when you are both intellectually honest and doggedly persistent at this. As I wrote this book I was also overcome with this personal insight - me 5 years from now would probably not pick this book to write. I would be interested in different things, different challenges. This is pretty much the only time I would ever write a junior-dev-to-senior-dev book: right after having done it. I suspect this is why so few junior-dev-to-senior-dev books exist - people wait too long, and then by the time they feel qualified to write a book, they care more about management or architecture or what have you. short answer: no i don't feel very qualified right now. i do intend to update this for a few years. how long until i am qualified? we shall see.
- claudiulodro 6y ago
  Thanks for clarifying. I think I will give it a read, even if just to see what your fresh perspective looks like. The personal branding stuff sounds very interesting and useful also. EDIT: I would like to note that the IMHO most mentally and technically difficult part of a developer career is maintaining the same mission-critical legacy codebase for years at a time. That's not something I really expect to get a lot of insight around from this book and your personal experience, but I'm also not sure what exactly advice around that problem would look like (probably just the tried-and-true military motto of "embrace the suck"). Either way, just my 2 cents about coding careers.
maps7 6y ago
Agreed. If the author had 40 years experience I would pay attention but 2 years experience is nothing. Maybe it should be sold as "what to expect in the first 2 years of your career".
- freewilly1040 6y ago
  And even then the advice would be worth little compared to more experienced people
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
Because that is what sells now. Write a book for Packt on X you are learning as you go => Leading expert in X and charge 100USD/hour Write a bunch of blog spam on X, a lot of it wrong => Leading expert in X and charge 100USD/hour Create a bunch of projects that have more bugs than Swiss cheese has holes => Leading expert in X and charge 100USD/hour There is a story today here that says GitHub is the Instagram of programming, and more and more I agree. Technical knowledge has been trumped by marketing. You are only someone if you have a blog/github profile/stackoverflow with more than 1M+ points. And then people wonder why software is so shitty now days, why a todo list in React makes any laptop run out of battery in 50 minutes (not attacking React, just how beginners use it).
- agustif 6y ago
  So if we accept this as baseline reality then what do we do?
  - atomashpolskiy 6y ago
    For Github projects, we could have an organization that would conduct project audit and certification on owner's expense. As an owner of a few open-source projects, I'm a little tired of hearing such insinuations as in the post above (although there is certainly a grain of truth in it -- we live in the Age of Bullshit, after all), so I would gladly cash out $1000 for getting a "quality approved" stamp from a widely trusted entity.
  - pc86 6y ago
    Refuse to accept it, and call out the charlatans that do it?
  - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
    Honestly I don't know. There is so much cargo culting nowadays in software development (agile, GitHub, white board interviews, hacker rank, tdd, add, ci, cd, redux, etc etc) and so many new people (< 5 years) without experience to see what works and doesn't work with the team and project that is hard to fight it. I worked in 3 different React projects in the last 2 years with 3 different teams. Only one required something as complex as Redux (and most likely Flux or other simpler state libraries would do). You know what? All of them had redux. It is what they learned in the latest blog post by ReactHipsterMainMain.com so that is what you see. If you are 25/28 years old and a start up CTO (?!?) and you spent your 20s in university and doing open source code and putting shit in GitHub, you value that and try to hire for that. Thus, this is well known and bootcamps and the likes teach people to put every little shit in GitHub to show they are 'passionate' about software development and has done a lot of projects. Even the take home projects. From experience, most companies have the same variation of the project. For iOS this is usually show a screen with data from an API, tap something and show details, also from an API. You can find millions of these small projects all over GitHub. But somehow they still ask for them. A few years ago I was so tired of this that I created a generic project and then a script that would take a JSON file and would generate the Swift Models, as well as API calls->transform to Model, and I would just need to create 2-3 functions to configure each cell depending on the data. I haven't seen any junior developers do something like this in their jobs. There are more and more classes, view controllers, components, stores etc. The abstraction thinking just isn't there yet. But they act like they know everything and have all the answers because of GitHub stars or whatever they are called. I am all over the place with this reply, I am sorry. Just after years and years of seeing this, more and more I don't think soft development is for me if it is just to become the Instagram of the geeks.
pc86 6y ago
> What qualifies you to instruct people how to manage their dev career Well, absolutely nothing, and it's a shame to see people (I have to imagine mostly college interns and fresh grads who already fancy themselves as "mid-level" developers) waste money on this nonsense. Unfortunately this is what happens when you see job advertisements requiring "Senior Developers" and specifying 5 years of total work experience. In no other industry can you be a 27 year old and be anything other than junior-to-mid. I say this as someone who was a senior developer in my late 20's, and you don't know anything in your late 20's. But I suppose if you're a senior developer after a couple years, what's to say you can't advise people on their careers when you haven't even made it through a Presidential election?
treetide 6y ago
About the $40+ for the advice part - seriously, that is a few hours of developer salary. Compared to the few days it would take reading, it is essentially nothing. Now the question is, investing those few days total saves you more worries. And doesn't derail you. That's hard to evaluate, and I don't attempt to. But for information, $40 is cheap.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  ? A few minutes.

MivLives 6y ago

I'm also curious about this, and interested in a review from someone who has been in the field longer to see how much the advice here rings true. 40 dollars isn't a huge ask for a book, but it's above an impulse buy. [edit] Rearranged some words for clarity

Swizec 6y ago
Swyx is legit. The speed at which he established himself as an authority in the React/Javascript world is hella impressive And he’s fresh enough that his advice isn’t enbittered and grizzled yet.
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
  I am not downvoting you, but (if GP is accurate) 2 years of professional experience is nothing, and to be an authority is laughable. To say he established himself as a developer marketer, ok, but damn, really? 2 Years? When I started to work 2 years was junior level developer, and now they are authorities?? I quickly checked his writings. I am not trying to put him down, they are ok, but completely different than what I would expect an expert/authority to write. But seems nowadays 50+ tweets a day and 4 blog posts a day are more important than actually, you know, writing good maintainable code.
  - Swizec 6y ago
    You forget the whole React field is like 5 years old. And this book is aimed at beginners, not folks like us with decades in the field.
    - odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
      Well, actually 7 years old so there is that. But it doesn't matter if it is react or iOS or prolog. If you think about it, a CS degree, that covers a lot of topics, is minimum 3/4 years. And when you get out of uni you are considered an intern/junior. But now, bootcamps/web tutorials, people think that ater 2 years they become an authority on something. I deal with these people everyday. They know 'react' inside out, but anything higher level (how to organize the freaking code) or how to use any kind of CS algo to solve a problem that isn't in the O(n^n) space because it is 'simple' is beyond them. Which is fine, is something that takes time to learn and know how to use. It took me years. But 'I'm a senior developer' types with 2 years of experience is ridiculous, and we should call them what they are, liars. (not the GP, again, don't know him, talking in general) (I don't think a CS degree is needed to be a software developer)
      - Swizec 6y ago
        Ok so why would any of that matter? He’s giving you advice on how to get a senior title fast, not on react or CS or engineering at all. Just the fast title acquisition. Who’s better for that advice? Someone who did it in 2 years or someone who took 10?
        odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
        It matters because he (in my point of view) isn't a senior and is lying about it? Because due to the dynamics of easy money and the lack of developers, you got 2 year bootcamp graduates getting 'senior' titles but being just beyond the junior marker. It matters because right now, we may have a coming recession where all these 'seniors' will see themselves fucked because companies will have more options and these 'seniors' will be too stuck up to realize they should be taking a more junior-ish position. It also matters because I deal with these people all day, that because they read the latest blog post on something think they are experts and sidetrack 15 minute meetings to dribble on that we are doing it wrong and waste an hour of my time.
        deleted 6y ago
- anothercrudapp 6y ago
  Hi Swyx

acemarke 6y ago

As a bystander but friend of Shawn's, I can say that over the last few years he has demonstrated an incredible ability to quickly learn and master concepts, then pass that information on to others. I've seen him go from someone who didn't know anything about web dev at all, to a master of what's going on with React and its ecosystem. He's added expertise on Svelte and other tools as well. Shawn excels at a lot of "big picture analysis" type thinking (which makes sense given his prior financial background), and I always find his comments and presentations insightful and highly informative. I haven't yet had time to read through this new book due to my own tasks, but based on the blog posts I've seen him write leading up to this, and the preview material he's tweeted, I have full confidence that this book is going to be an excellent resource for other developers. As for the price, Shawn's clearly put a lot of time and effort into writing this. If you have questions about his ability to do so and the likely quality, I'd encourage you to read through some of his blog posts to get a sense of how he writes: https://www.swyx.io/writing/ https://www.swyx.io/writing/

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sokoloff 6y ago
I think GP's point is that I would be similarly skeptical of taking parenting advice "from diapers to diplomas" from someone who hadn't yet had their first-born blow out a birthday candle, regardless of how well-edited or how much effort they put into publishing that advice. To me, it's not about the $40; it's about advice on "the full journey from Code Newbie to Senior Developer" from someone who is probably much closer to the former than the latter.
jayrice257 6y ago
Hey, your own "tutorials" and "educational blog" look like total garbage. Maybe that's why you support each other. This guy is possibly qualified to write a bad "book" about marketing, why is this shit on HN

kamaal 6y ago

Haven't read the book, but by reading the table of contents, it does look like it is essays on commonly known topics to most programmers. Stuff like reading books, training frequently, exposure to Machiavellian strategies, perennial interview practice, side projects etc is already known to most programmers who are aware and actively seeking improvement. One thing that I like to see most programmers pay importance to in the future is physical fitness and rest. Mental health would also be a good topic to add. We are a profession where every one wants to win spectacularly or die trying. Or we just over eat and sit our excercise-less bodies to death. A comprehensive programmer nerd's guide to exercise, rest and mental health would be something I'd be interested in reading.

swyx 6y ago
i agree! (the final chapter is basically what you said here) unfortunately i need to learn that too before i can write it.

swyx 6y ago

i think its a fair question and you've been very polite about it :) I basically deal with it by being super open about it (it's pretty much the first thing anyone knows about me) and letting people decide if they still want to read me or not. enough do. in a free market, that's plenty. so the question then becomes: what confidence do I have in what I think I know? it comes from 3 places: - Empirical foundation: study and read others. this book has 1419 external links and quotes to advice from people way more credible and established than me. I provide curation and context. - Theoretical foundation: I do my best to ensure what i see in real life is backed up by indisputable logical/psychological axioms. This is important for replicability. - Personal Experience: I apply what I learn to myself. Every weakness can be a strength (funny enough, i spend a whole chapter talking about this). In my case, i've basically made a career out of putting out what i learn as i learn it, before i'm an expert, with the responsible disclaimer that I am not an expert but I do put a ton of work into thinking and research. it's the opposite of "fake it til you make it", its being real that you havent made it yet but you do not let that stop you trying. I am at the exact point where my voice and perspective on things (being a recent beginner) let me explain things to beginners in ways that experts can't. Yes it's uncomfortable af. But you see tremendous growth when you are both intellectually honest and doggedly persistent at this. As I wrote this book I was also overcome with this personal insight - me 5 years from now would probably not pick this book to write. I would be interested in different things, different challenges. This is pretty much the only time I would ever write a junior-dev-to-senior-dev book: right after having done it. I suspect this is why so few junior-dev-to-senior-dev books exist - people wait too long, and then by the time they feel qualified to write a book, they care more about management or architecture or what have you. short answer: no i don't feel very qualified right now. i do intend to update this for a few years. how long until i am qualified? we shall see.

claudiulodro 6y ago
Thanks for clarifying. I think I will give it a read, even if just to see what your fresh perspective looks like. The personal branding stuff sounds very interesting and useful also. EDIT: I would like to note that the IMHO most mentally and technically difficult part of a developer career is maintaining the same mission-critical legacy codebase for years at a time. That's not something I really expect to get a lot of insight around from this book and your personal experience, but I'm also not sure what exactly advice around that problem would look like (probably just the tried-and-true military motto of "embrace the suck"). Either way, just my 2 cents about coding careers.

maps7 6y ago

Agreed. If the author had 40 years experience I would pay attention but 2 years experience is nothing. Maybe it should be sold as "what to expect in the first 2 years of your career".

freewilly1040 6y ago
And even then the advice would be worth little compared to more experienced people
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

odshoifsdhfs 6y ago

Because that is what sells now. Write a book for Packt on X you are learning as you go => Leading expert in X and charge 100USD/hour Write a bunch of blog spam on X, a lot of it wrong => Leading expert in X and charge 100USD/hour Create a bunch of projects that have more bugs than Swiss cheese has holes => Leading expert in X and charge 100USD/hour There is a story today here that says GitHub is the Instagram of programming, and more and more I agree. Technical knowledge has been trumped by marketing. You are only someone if you have a blog/github profile/stackoverflow with more than 1M+ points. And then people wonder why software is so shitty now days, why a todo list in React makes any laptop run out of battery in 50 minutes (not attacking React, just how beginners use it).

agustif 6y ago
So if we accept this as baseline reality then what do we do?
- atomashpolskiy 6y ago
  For Github projects, we could have an organization that would conduct project audit and certification on owner's expense. As an owner of a few open-source projects, I'm a little tired of hearing such insinuations as in the post above (although there is certainly a grain of truth in it -- we live in the Age of Bullshit, after all), so I would gladly cash out $1000 for getting a "quality approved" stamp from a widely trusted entity.
- pc86 6y ago
  Refuse to accept it, and call out the charlatans that do it?
- odshoifsdhfs 6y ago
  Honestly I don't know. There is so much cargo culting nowadays in software development (agile, GitHub, white board interviews, hacker rank, tdd, add, ci, cd, redux, etc etc) and so many new people (< 5 years) without experience to see what works and doesn't work with the team and project that is hard to fight it. I worked in 3 different React projects in the last 2 years with 3 different teams. Only one required something as complex as Redux (and most likely Flux or other simpler state libraries would do). You know what? All of them had redux. It is what they learned in the latest blog post by ReactHipsterMainMain.com so that is what you see. If you are 25/28 years old and a start up CTO (?!?) and you spent your 20s in university and doing open source code and putting shit in GitHub, you value that and try to hire for that. Thus, this is well known and bootcamps and the likes teach people to put every little shit in GitHub to show they are 'passionate' about software development and has done a lot of projects. Even the take home projects. From experience, most companies have the same variation of the project. For iOS this is usually show a screen with data from an API, tap something and show details, also from an API. You can find millions of these small projects all over GitHub. But somehow they still ask for them. A few years ago I was so tired of this that I created a generic project and then a script that would take a JSON file and would generate the Swift Models, as well as API calls->transform to Model, and I would just need to create 2-3 functions to configure each cell depending on the data. I haven't seen any junior developers do something like this in their jobs. There are more and more classes, view controllers, components, stores etc. The abstraction thinking just isn't there yet. But they act like they know everything and have all the answers because of GitHub stars or whatever they are called. I am all over the place with this reply, I am sorry. Just after years and years of seeing this, more and more I don't think soft development is for me if it is just to become the Instagram of the geeks.

pc86 6y ago

> What qualifies you to instruct people how to manage their dev career Well, absolutely nothing, and it's a shame to see people (I have to imagine mostly college interns and fresh grads who already fancy themselves as "mid-level" developers) waste money on this nonsense. Unfortunately this is what happens when you see job advertisements requiring "Senior Developers" and specifying 5 years of total work experience. In no other industry can you be a 27 year old and be anything other than junior-to-mid. I say this as someone who was a senior developer in my late 20's, and you don't know anything in your late 20's. But I suppose if you're a senior developer after a couple years, what's to say you can't advise people on their careers when you haven't even made it through a Presidential election?

treetide 6y ago

About the $40+ for the advice part - seriously, that is a few hours of developer salary. Compared to the few days it would take reading, it is essentially nothing. Now the question is, investing those few days total saves you more worries. And doesn't derail you. That's hard to evaluate, and I don't attempt to. But for information, $40 is cheap.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
? A few minutes.