Books by author: Michael Lopp

Michael Lopp is better known as Rands, author of the Rands in Repose weblog. He's a software-engineer-turned-manager with battle scars from Silicon Valley startups, and he writes very well for an audience of fellow engineers. That means short chapters, casual but witty prose, and no punches pulled. Being Geek is a collection of his wisdom and writings, loosely arranged around the career lifecycle of a software engineer.

I've been a programmer for almost thirty years (I started writing text adventure games on an Apple II in fifth grade) and employed as a software engineer and then manager for the last twelve years, and everything in this book rings true to me. The chapters on giving a presentation are more concise, witty, and on-point than Berkun's Confessions of a Public Speaker, and the book as a whole is a good read.

I recommend this book to anyone starting out a career in software engineering, or to anyone making a transition from engineer to manager.

This is not as good as Lopp's Being Geek, but his wisdom still rings true.