Book review - The Black book of the Programmer by Rafael Gómez Blanes

Rafael Gómez Blanes wrote this amazing book that I think is a must for all developers and managers in the IT world. His experiece in the Software Development world is the key he uses to highlight what works and what does not. It’s a book that touches almost all or perhaps all the parts of Software Development Culture the way I see it.

For me, if there is a book where trying to highlight just a few quotes is difficult, this is the book. I think it is also the book that I have recommended the most to friends and colleagues.

Highlighted quotes

Rather than providing a summary of the book, which may be biased or influenced by my personal opinions or writing style, I prefer to spotlight select phrases from the text that I found particularly inspiring.

👉 We are not taught to do teamwork or that the success of a project depends on the collaboration between all its members

👉 I program, ergo I refactor

👉 A software can be delivered on time and be an absolute disaster at the same time.

👉 A developer cannot implement clean code with a whip behind

👉 We have to know how to think as “authors” besides developers: we write for others to read

👉 It amazes me how much time we spend learning new technology and how little we spend improving our mastery and understanding of the principles and patterns that will make our software strong

👉 To have optimum productivity, a project is started and finished by the same team

👉 When impossible challenges are required to meet with extra pressure, the same thing always happen: personal disasters and failed projects. Maybe we delivered something, but its quality was minimal for sure

👉 A bad manager believes that the team “below” him/her is at his/her service, when in reality he/she is the one who should be at the service of the team

👉 It is wrong to think that working more hours means to working more. This should be interpreted precisely as a symptom of a lack of productivity and efficiency on a day-to-day basis

👉 When the pressure appears, the first thing that disappears is the methodology

👉 It is rare to find developers over 45 years old. This is a tragedy for talent when experience and background are very important to make good software products

👉 In software, working longer hours does not increase productivity. […]. When we code, we continually make design decisions. We are hardly get them right when we have ten hours of fatigue behind us

👉 The best developers I have met are the most humble with their own work, the most open to recognizing that there are better solutions