Investing in books for maximum ROI for developers
I read the book "Effective Engineer" by Edmond Lau almost 7 years ago. If there is one thing I remember from the top of my head is this:
It triggered me to learn shell scripting.
In one of the chapters, the author talked about importance being able to write scripts to automate tasks. It spoke directly to my needs at the time.
I was freelancing back then and needed a way to quickly add my tasks and produce a monthly summary of what I did.
So I went on and took a Udemy course and wrote a tool I called dailog. I have used it for almost a year to generate my freelancing reports.
Moreover this helped me further down the road:
- Reading devops scripts
- Writing other scripts
- Understand unix file permissions
I couldn't have done it without the following principles I apply to reading till this day.
1. Invest with incomplete information
A circulating advice is to set a clear goal when reading or learning somethings.
I find it misleading.
Oftentimes there is a book or a broader topic that interests me and not a clear goal I am pursuing.
In such cases I might buy a book and it might sit on the shelf for some time. It has:
- low investment
- low expectations
Low investment is great, around $10. And it might not pay off.
I initially bought “Effective Engineer” more out of curiosity, without a clear agenda.
2. Omit cover to cover mindset
For a long time I used to brag (mostly to myself) how many books I read, aka finished.
But I felt that I was not really improving. I used to jump from one great idea to another, from one exciting chapter to another.
With "Effective Engineer" was the first time I did something differently.
I stopped.
Stopping at the chapter that was most relevant at that time was the proper trigger to implement what I read.
Without pausing at that point, I would have forgotten about the tip and would not learn shell scripting.
3. Golden goose
Remember the low investment?
Well, some investments pay off. So do some books.
"Effective Engineer" is is an awesome book. We used to have a book club at my previous company where we read it. It sparked many relevant discussions about code
- quality
- reliability
- estimation and more.
It is a golden goose!
Detecting a golden goose is easy.
Once you implement/learn one thing from a book, treat it as new one. Come to it later on.
If you happen to stop again and find something useful again, stop and implement it. Repeat!
Go invest now
What's a book you are reading/want to read now?
- Start
- Read until the first useful part
- Stop and go implement
- Return to the book - it might be a golden goose :)
That's it for today.