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Hello HN friends! I never thought I'd say this, but - yes - I just published a book! 14 Habits of Highly Productive Developers is now available for everyone.

Hello HN friends! I never thought I'd say this, but - yes - I just published a book! 14 Habits of Highly Productive Developers is now available for everyone. It's everything I know about productivity, tech career, and side projects into one package. I spent 3 months writing this, 1 month working on the launch, and 10+ years living these ideas. To be honest, I never wanted to write a book, but I believe that being a developer is more than knowing the hottest tools. You can learn the most popular frameworks, use the best programming languages, and work at the biggest tech companies, but if you cultivate bad habits, it will be hard for you to become a top developer. Because of that, I decided to reach out to the best developers I know and ask them tips on how to be more productive. I went after tech giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Powerful startups such as Spotify, GoDaddy, and Shopify. All the way to established organizations such as Citibank and The New York Times. This book is a collection of valuable learnings not only from me but from experienced programmers from all over the world. I hope you like it :) Let me know if you have any questions! I'm here to answer every single one of them.

pinfisher 6y ago
I appreciate you putting up the first chapter!
- zenorocha 6y ago
  No worries. I saw some people doing that and putting email walls to get it. I think this is much better. Just click, download it, and get a sense of it before making a purchase decision.
  - utkarsh_apoorva 6y ago
    The lack of email walls was so refreshing. I expected an ugly form to show up, and was willing to fill it out. But instead, I was greeted with the actual download - just like that. I don't know what the opposite of Cognitive Dissonance is called, but now I know what it feels like.
    - zenorocha 6y ago
      That's so nice to hear!
maps7 6y ago
3 months seems like very little time to write a book. How come you chose a book vs a series of blog posts?
robaato 6y ago
Looks good, but you might want to get a little editing help just to sharpen up the language - a liberal arts major would help fix various little things quite quickly I suspect. E.g. "I spoke in [more than a hundred conferences]" - I think "I spoke at" is better. However, my background is UK English so perhaps this is an Americanism. Next para: "I was fortunate enough to be in contact with some of the best software engineers in the industry, but I also met a lot of programmers who are still doing the same thing for many years." "I was fortunate enough to come into contact with some of the best software engineers in the industry, but I also met a lot of programmers who just spent many years repeating the same thing."

pinfisher 6y ago

I appreciate you putting up the first chapter!

zenorocha 6y ago
No worries. I saw some people doing that and putting email walls to get it. I think this is much better. Just click, download it, and get a sense of it before making a purchase decision.
- utkarsh_apoorva 6y ago
  The lack of email walls was so refreshing. I expected an ugly form to show up, and was willing to fill it out. But instead, I was greeted with the actual download - just like that. I don't know what the opposite of Cognitive Dissonance is called, but now I know what it feels like.
  - zenorocha 6y ago
    That's so nice to hear!

maps7 6y ago

3 months seems like very little time to write a book. How come you chose a book vs a series of blog posts?

robaato 6y ago

Looks good, but you might want to get a little editing help just to sharpen up the language - a liberal arts major would help fix various little things quite quickly I suspect. E.g. "I spoke in [more than a hundred conferences]" - I think "I spoke at" is better. However, my background is UK English so perhaps this is an Americanism. Next para: "I was fortunate enough to be in contact with some of the best software engineers in the industry, but I also met a lot of programmers who are still doing the same thing for many years." "I was fortunate enough to come into contact with some of the best software engineers in the industry, but I also met a lot of programmers who just spent many years repeating the same thing."