Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware.
This topic is not really my “sort of thing” (I generally find that these books quickly devolve into platitudes and neat little homilies). Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading it.
I found the discussion on the Dreyfuss model and Nursing, and the relevance to the software profession interesting. These paragraphs in particular resonated:
Given that the highest-skilled developers are orders of magnitude more productive than the least-skilled developers, the current common salary structures for developers is simply inadequate. Like the nursing profession years ago, we continually face the risk of losing a critical mass of expertise to management, competitors or other fields.
This tendency is made worse by the recent increases in outsourcing and offshoring development to cheaper countries. It’s an unfortunate development in that it further cements the idea in people’s minds that coding is just a mechanical activity and can be sent away to the lowest bidder. It doesn’t quite work that way, of course.
As in the nursing profession, experts at coding must continue to code and find a meaningful and rewarding career there. Setting a pay scale and a career ladder that reflects a top coder’s value to the organization is the first step toward making this a reality.
I don’t know if this really reflects the main thrust of the book, but it was interesting to read.
