In this episode of the Rabbit Hole podcast, we talk about software development books and literature. We talk about tow of our favorites in some detail, but also discuss the concepts of software development books more broadly (in the sense of what they can offer and why people might choose to read them).

In general, these books (such as Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby: An Agile Primer by Sandi Metz) offer insight that encourages you to rethink your overall approach, technique, and mindset. Learning transferrable concepts, skills, and ideas is a strong motivator behind reading programming books, since there are other resources for simple references. One example of a book that offers this is The Phoenix Project, a novel that one of the panelists compares to being like Ayn Rand’s works in terms of being allegorical and a teaching tool.

In the episode, we also talk about hard skills versus soft skills. “Soft” doesn’t mean “weak” in this context,and soft skills have great value. This is summed up in a Portuguese expression, “água mole em pedra dura tanto bate até que fura.”

We finish things up with a teach-and-learn moment about RSpec Bisect, and a toast to failure involving vcr. Tune in to learn more and to hear our thoughts on a couple of great books!