The evolution of this book is kind of funny: The first edition of this book was called "My job went to India, and all I got was this lousy book" (seriously! I would never dare to touch a book with such a title).
The subtitle has been changed from "52 ways to save your job" to "Creating a remarkable career in software development" - and the book greatly benefits from this new spirit (changed from "reactive" to "proactive", so to say). There are still some chapters that seem to focus on "keeping your job" - these are the weak points of the book. But beside this, I think the few hours reading time is a good investment.
Some things to remember (or try out):
- Ch. 7: Don't retreat to your job role. Continuously enlarge your (technology/business/...) playground
- Ch. 11: Know the background ("how and why") of all the technologies and business rules you work with
- Ch. 14: "To find out whether you really know something, try teaching it to someone else"
- Ch. 15: Don't "practice on the job" - perform on the job, and practice at home
- Ch. 21: Write down all reoccuring/annoying tasks or problems. Each day, solve one such task (by fixing, automating,...)
- Ch. 28: The eight-hour burn - "[...] work so relentlessly that there is no way that you could continue longer than eight hours"