Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Digital Bookmarks

I just had to return two books to the library I didn't get to finished. I'm leaving myself a few notes about them here so I can decide if I want to go back and pick them up.

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Title: Too Lazy To Work, To Nervous To Steal

Author: John Clausen

What it's about: How to make enough money as a freelance writer so you can live the good life (as a freelance writer)

Why I picked it up: My interest in small business and the fact that the act of writing is similar to the act of programming. To be honest though, I the clever title probably was as much a reason as any.

Main lesson: Reuse, reuse, reuse. Find ways to take the same writing and republish it in as many contexts as possible (changing it to be relevant, of course). Also, be a generalist - write lots of different types of content to cast the widest net possible.

Worth reading? Sure, why not. Programmers like myself will probably find a lesson or two to take away. Writers, YMMV. I doubt this is the best book on the topic out there.

Rating: 7/10

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Title: Debugging

Author: David Agans

What it's about: This is a book that attempts to teach the art of software and hardware debugging. It's programming language and environment agnostic. It's trying to teach the fundamentals of debugging.

Why I picked it up: I'm a programmer, debugging is what I do. I'm always up for learning new tricks.

Main lesson: Debugging isn't just a skill that takes years to master through trial and error. There are concrete rules a beginner can follow today to be better at debugging.

Worth reading? Great for beginners and anyone who hasn't had a lot of practice in debugging software. Even if you aren't a programmer, the lessons are invaluable. If you've been programming for years, there's probably less here for you.

Rating: 7/10

--Ben

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