And Now About You

Readers of this book will fall into a few broad categories:

• College students and recent graduates taking computer science classes and wondering, “Is this what programming is like in the real world?” (Short answer: no.)

• Professionals from other backgrounds who got into programming as a hobby or side job, now wanting to take it on full-time.

• Others who are considering a job in programming but want the skinny on what the books and classes aren’t telling them.

Regardless of path, here you are: it’s time to pay the bills with code. There are plenty of books out there on the code part. There’s not so much on everything else that goes with the job—and that’s where this book comes in.

For the professionals coming from other fields, some sections won’t apply as much to you—you don’t need me to tell you what marketing does if your background is marketing. However, you will still benefit from details about how things run within the engineering department and how code evolves from concept to release.