John Sonmez - Soft Skills: The software developers life manual

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To all developers who strive for continuous self-improvement...

Who are not satisfied with good enough

Who always seek every opportunity to expand their horizons and explore the unknown

Whose thirst for knowledge is never fully quenched

Who believe that software development means more than just writing code

Who know that failure is not the end, but merely a step in the journey

Who struggle at times, and sometimes fall, but always get back up again

Who have the will and determination to seek the harder path in life

And, most importantly, who are willing to help others along the way

Ive long been an advocate for soft skills. Coding is so harsh and cold. Everything is so easily measured in the hard world of code. How many lines of code can you write? How productive can you be? Did those tests pass? Its easy to get caught up in the measurement of it all and lose sight of the human aspect of technology.

Are you liked? Are you appreciated? Are you kind and welcoming? Do you inspire with your positivity and supportive demeanor, or just with your ruthless competence? Are you taking care of yourself, your back, your buns, and your brain? Ive been coding for well over 25 years and, let me tell you, things break down if you dont take care of them.

Perhaps youre a consultant, as many of us are. Are you taking care of your finances? Money doesnt compile quite the same way as code, as much as youd wish it did. All of these skills and so many more make up the so-called soft skills. What John has done for us with this book is to compile all of the things one needs to know to form, well, a well-rounded software professional! After many years of fail-fast, fail-often, John speaks from vast experience about what works and what doesnt. Soft Skills is a near complete brain dump from a successful engineer and it gives you useful, practical, and actionable advice on a wide array of topics.

Id also recommend you check out my free video documentary, Get Involved in Tech at of this very book! John and I think similarly about these things which is why Im thrilled to be writing this foreword.

Enjoy this book. Take it a little at a time, jump around, absorb, and return to it. Continuous integration and continuous improvement work in wetware as well as software!

S COTT H ANSELMAN

S OFTWARE A RCHITECT , E NGINEER , A UTHOR , T EACHER

Late in the evening of Friday, December 5, 2014 (my 62nd birthday), I received an email from John Sonmez, the author of this book. He wrote, asking me to write a foreword by Monday, December 8. In Johns email was a zip file with several dozen Word filesI found this presentation of the manuscript to be inconvenient and annoying, and I didnt have time to generate a PDF of the whole book.

I wasnt pleased to get such a request. My wife had just had double knee replacements and was in rehab. I had a flying lesson Saturday morning and planned to spend the rest of the day with my wife. I was scheduled to board a plane to London Saturday evening and teach courses Monday through Friday. So there was no way, not by Monday. John hadnt given me enough time, and I told him so.

Just before driving to the airport, I found John had sent me a Christmas package of cheeses and ham. It included a card, thanking me for considering writing the foreword. Also, I received another email from John in which he said he had begged his publisher for another day, so he could give me until Tuesday. He sent me several other imploring emails, but I told him that there was no reasonable chance, and that he should expect nothing from me.

I drove to the airport, boarded the plane, slept through the flight, and took a taxi to my favorite London hotel. I was wiped out by the travel and played Minecraft in a stupor until I finally crashed. On Monday I taught a full day, and then had to do some work on the SMC Compiler for Episode 30 of my Clean Code video series on http://cleancoders.com.

Today is Tuesday, December 9. Its the second day of my class, and I just started the students working on a two-hour exercise. I checked my email and found that John had sent me another message with a simple PDF of the whole book. Okay, that would make things easier. I could just open that file and scroll up and down the book. Nice.

Note what Im telling you: John did what was necessary. He thought about what I might need and want. He followed his original request with inducements and helpful aids. He clearly spent a lot of time and effort working to make my job easier, on the off-chance that it would make it possible for me to write this foreword. Even after Id declined and told him it was almost certainly impossible, he continued to find ways to induce and aid me. He didnt give up. He didnt back down. As long as there was a chance, he continued to search for a way.

And that is what this book is about. Its about getting to success. Its about the habits and strategies, procedures and mindsets, and tricks and hacks that you can use to push yourself ever closer to success. Johns actions toward me, after his original request, are an example, and he is an exemplar, of what he has written in this book.

So, with two hours to kill while the students did their exercise, I cracked the PDF open and began to read. Whoa! Look at the topics! He talks about physical fitness. He talks about options trading. He talks about real estate. He talks about spiritual balance. He talks about quitting your job, starting a consulting business, joining a startup, building a product, climbing the corporate ladder, marketing yourself, and the list goes on...