I’d like to first thank the team at InformIT for making books like Making it Big in Software. I love these titles!

Making it Big in Software is a great read, it is something I think that every software developer would have loved to have had when they were breaking into the software world. I know I would have loved to have had it.

Sam Lightstone has put together what could easily be called the blueprint to a successful career in software. He covers college, post-college pre-career, interviewing, resumes, fitting into the work environment, salary discussions, and more, much more.

The book is broken into three parts each covering an aspect of the flow of becoming big player in software, or at least a medium sized player in software.

The book is spattered with great interviews with some of the greatest minds of our time, including:

• Marissa Mayer, Google VP, Search Products and User Experience
• Linus Torvalds, Creator, Linux operating system kernel
• Steve Wozniak, Inventor, Apple computer
• John Schwarz, CEO, Business Objects
• James Gosling, Inventor, Java programming language
• Bjarne Stroustrup, Inventor, C++ programming language

Sam keeps the tone of the book very light, and I found it quite entertaining.

The chapters are broken into sections and each section is only a page or two long, which makes this a great short reader.

I have praised the writers of interview books before, and I will do it again, I think you can learn a lot from the old dogs (and some new dogs). I think that hearing the war stories and the victories and defeats are important in knowing where you are going, and where you are coming from. I love books like this one.

So again thanks to the team at InformIT and Sam Lightsone for taking the time to write Making it Big in Software.

Things have been mighty quiet here. I have been working on getting setup with more publishers so I can read and  review more books on Open Source and Programming with you. I have also been working with friends to establish some partnerships to hopefully get a chance to write reviews for video games as well. All in all things are moving quite nicely on all fronts.

This weekend looks to be packed with a lot of fun. Tonight I am attending a party to get some free software, probably nothing OS, but hey free is free. The company hosting the party is also giving us free tickets to the Jazz game, I don’t much care for basketball, but again free is free.

Gears of War 2 released today, so I will of course be getting knee deep in some Locust blood, can’t wait to chainsaw in an upward fashion. You can find me on Xbox Live as “ut dragon”, I hope to be changing that soon.

Finally I have a slew of books that should be hitting the PO Box this weekend. I know for sure I am getting RESTful PHP (Packt Publishing), I should also be getting Ubuntu Kung Fu (O’reilly), as well as Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship(InformIT), and PHP 6:  A Beginner’s Guide (McGraw-Hill). This will make for some great reading and growth in the peronsal category.