That looks a little bit strange that I’m so happy that I blog about the fact that I finished reading a book, right?
But let me tell you a story:
I started reading Clean Code round about six years ago. Yes, you’re reading it right. Six years ago — I started my first job at a company — a colleague recommended me to read the book Clean Code. Because I really valued him back then I bought that book and started to read. I was really new in the software development in general so the book was sometimes really hard to understand.
Anyways. I haven’t finished the book not only because my head burned after a few chapters (cause I learned so much new things) but also because the same colleague said that only the “first few” chapters matters.
So I put the book aside — still in my head that this is probably the best book about software development I’ve ever read in my life — and continued to learn over blog posts and tutorials/guides from the internet.
In the last two years I always started to look at this book over and over again but never had the time (gosh I hate this sentences these days for reasons) to open it and start to read.
This was also the time were another friend of mine comes into the game. He asked me if I already read the book The Clean Coder. I didn’t. But with that question I found out that Robert C. Martin, the author of both books, had written more books. So I started to buy “all” of them (okay, okay, they were christmas presents but that doesn’t matter in this context 🙃):
- The Clean Coder
- Clean Architecture
- Clean Agile
Now I had four books in my shelf, ready to read! Great.
But there is still the issue with the time. When should I read this stuff?
Earlier this year I changed my employer. From 100% remote to 60% remote. Not because I don’t like working remotely anymore but rather than I fit way better in the new company even if I don’t do 100% remote anymore.
Whatever, nowadays I commute twice days a week with the train for round about 30 minutes (each). So there is time to read, right? Right!
I took the opportunity and said to myself:
Read each day you commute to the office and if there is a lazy work day also read to the way home.
Spoiler: Since I started there were no “lazy work day” 😁.
Yesterday, 12. March 2020, I finished my first book: Clean Code.
From the beginning to the end. Without jumping over chapters.
It took me 17 days or 8.5 hours.
And yes, that makes me pretty proud.
So proud that I shared this in a blog post with the world.
Today I just put my next book in the row in my backpack ready to read it:
