Review

My year in books (according to Goodreads). 8443 pages read in 26 books. I mostly binged on thrillers and series I am already following. Just one non-fiction! I am currently reading / being stuck in these: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig - this is a reread. I read it as a teenager, and I am not getting through it at the moment. Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder by Dave Barter - collection of articles. The title might be the best bit. Edges by Linda Nagata - I am not very excited. Fiction Mark Dawson I just continue reading his multiple series. ...

2020 was a bit unexpected to say the least. Here is a quick review from my perspective. This is the second year we are living in the countryside and hour from Barcelona and over the year it turned out to have been a pretty good decision. January Pretty uneventful. I mostly cycled indoors and met the BRCG crew once for a longer ride. A storm hit Spain and led to a bit of damage on our house. ...

The Phoenix Project Someone recommended this to me and I got it for free on Kindle, so I thought I give it a go. I kind of like the concept of a novelized version of a DevOps book. I also liked the main characters and the general setup. It seemed a bit weird that a lot of best practices are completely unknown in the fictional company, but I guess this might also exist in the real world. ...

I should start a list of books I wish I read earlier. This one would definitely be on that list. Thankfully it is fairly recent, so I don’t have myself to blame. Most people that I know in some kind of lead or management role stumbled into them. This was certainly the case for me. One day you are the lone developer in a small shop or start-up and without your fault it does start to grow. All is well until you have a handful of people in the team, suddenly there is a need for some structure and dare I say the word “management”. A lot of developers, including myself, are introverts and also prefer the technology side of a company. Taking on the role of a lead or manager will force you to talk to more people and reduces your time on the keyboard. I never wanted to manage people, but working at my start-up (guideguide, war stories another time) I realised that someone had to do it and if I cared for the company it probably had to be me. ...

I am a relatively long user of the Kindle. I got my first Kindle Keyboard in November 2010 and had to replace it twice, once for theft and once because a broken display. I liked it so much that I was never tempted to switch to one of the newer versions. Most of them come with better displays, back-light, are smaller and lighter, but at the same time remove one feature that I especially like: the page turning buttons. ...