Book Review: The Missing README

The Missing README by Chris Riccomini and Dmitriy Ryaboy is a guide for those just entering the software development field. It looks to supplement formal coursework with the other side of software development. The kind of things every developer experiences. The book discusses coding, testing, collaboration, app support, project management, and career management.

Throughout the book, the authors provide real-world examples that illustrate the point being explained. You can tell that the authors have been around a while and that their knowledge reflects a large amount of experience.

As someone coming into a company full of software engineers, the book offered a great readout of the mind of a developer. For example, as a sysadmin I’d always checked logs from whatever app I was troubleshooting. Seeing their rationale for how, why, and what they log gave me a great perspective. When does something belong in the INFO or the DEBUG log stream? The book is full of little topics that gave me a fuller picture of computing.

I highly recommend the book for those entering software engineering or anyone looking to support software development.