It's kind of a book about people-management by "rands," a blogger who's also an engineering manager. I suspect that people-managers who aren't used to dealing with nerds might get creeped out by this book. It's a book about people-management by someone who's probably more at ease with computers than with management. But this seems like a good book for plenty of tech workers. If you're a nerd who's fallen into managing, this book might give you some ideas of how you can stay sane when one of your minions keeps talking at you about something instead of letting you go back to coding. If you're a tech worker with an ex-programmer manager, this might give you some insight into how that manager's thinking. Maybe. If the tone sounds familiar. Impati– uhm, eager. Driven.
This book is basically a collection of blog posts, posts that have been re-written. Some of them fit better than others. E.g., there's a chapter in here that re-presents Rands' "Nerd Cave" post; that post always seemed more like an apology to his sweetie than like a post that was a nerd writing for other nerds. It sits uneasily here, in a book about management. And yet, it's a popular blog post, so its absence would have been noted.
If you remind yourself not to worry too much about "why is this chapter in this book?" and sit back to enjoy the writing, it's a fun read.
