You've already lost your job. You may still be drawing a paycheck, but the job you were hired to do no longer exists. Your company has changed, the technology has changed, the economy has changed, and the ways you can add value have changed. Have you adapted to these changes? Or are you at risk?
Architect your careerEconomic downturn. Job cuts. Outsourcing. The ever-changing tech landscape. The threats abound. Chad Fowler is here to offer 52 ways to keep your job, despite the vagaries of the market.<ul>
<li>It's all about making the right choices. Choosing which technologies to focus on and which business domains to master have at least as much impact on your success as your technical knowledge--don't let those choices be accidental. Chad shows you all aspects of the decision-making process so you can ensure that you're investing your time and energy in the right areas.</li>
<li>It's all about skills. You'll develop a structured plan for keeping your skills up-to-date so that you can compete with both the growing stable of developers in so-called low-cost countries as well as your higher-priced local peers. You'll learn how to shift your skillset up the value chain, from an offshore-ready commodity to one in high demand.</li>
<li>It's all about marketing. As with any product or service, if nobody knows what you're selling, nobody will buy. Chad shows you how to create a plan for marketing yourself both inside your company and to the industry in general.</li>
</ul>Like it or not, the IT career landscape has changed. This handbook will teach you what you need to do to avoid being left behind.About the authorChad Fowler has been a software developer and manager for some of the world's largest corporations. He recently lived and worked in India, setting up and leading an offshore software development center for a large multinational company.

My Job Went to India: And All I Got Was This Lousy Book

Business & Money

Fowler, Chad

Business Culture

Pragmatic Bookshelf

Rails is large, powerful, and new. How do you use it effectively? How do you harness the power? And, most important, how do you get high quality, real-world applications written?
From the latest Ajax effects to time-saving automation tips for your development process, Rails Recipes will show you how the experts have already solved the problems you have.
<ul>
<li>Use generators to automate repetitive coding tasks.</li>
<li>Create sophisticated role-based authentication schemes.</li>
<li>Add live search and live preview to your site.</li>
<li>Run tests when anyone checks code in.</li>
<li>How to create tagged data the right way.</li>
<li>and many, many more...</li>
</ul>
Owning Rails Recipes is like having the best Rails programmers sitting next to you while you code.

Rails Recipes

Computers & Technology

Web Development & Design

Ruby on Rails continues to build up a tremendous head of steam. Fueled by significant benefits and an impressive portfolio of real-world applications already in production, Rails is destined to continue making significant inroads in coming years.
Each new Rails application showing up on the web adds yet more to the collective wisdom of the Rails development community. Yesterday's best practices yield to today's latest and greatest techniques, as the state of the art is continually refined in kitchens all across the Internet. Indeed, these are times of great progress.
At the same time, it's easy to get left behind in the wake of progress. Advanced Rails Recipes keeps you on the cutting edge of Rails development and, more importantly, continues to turn this fast-paced framework to your advantage.
Advanced Rails Recipes is filled with pragmatic recipes you'll use on every Rails project. And by taking the code in these recipes and slipping it into your application you'll not only deliver your application quicker, you'll do so with the confidence that it's done right.
The book includes contributions from Aaron Batalion, Adam Keys, Adam Wiggins, Andre Lewis, Andrew Kappen, Benjamin Curtis, Ben Smith, Chris Bernard, Chris Haupt, Chris Wanstrath, Cody Fauser, Dan Benjamin, Dan Manges, Daniel Fischer, David Bock, David Chelimsky, David Heinemeier Hansson, Erik Hatcher, Ezra Zygmuntowicz, Geoffrey Grosenbach, Giles Bowkett, Greg Hansen, Gregg Pollack, Hemant Kumar, Hugh Bien, JamieOrchard-Hays, Jamis Buck, Jared Haworth, Jarkko Laine, Jason LaPier, Jay Fields, John Dewey, Jonathan Dahl, Josep Blanquer, Josh Stephenson, Josh Susser, Kevin Clark, Luke Francl, Mark Bates, Marty Haught, Matthew Bass, Michael Slater, Mike Clark, Mike Hagedorn, Mike Mangino, Mike Naberezny, Mike Subelsky, Nathaniel Talbott, PJ Hyett, Patrick Reagan, Peter Marklund, Pierre-Alexandre Meyer, Rick Olson, Ryan Bates, Scott Barron, Tony Primerano, Val Aleksenko, and Warren Konkel.

Advanced Rails Recipes

Clark, Mike

Would you like to go from first idea to working code much, much faster? Do you currently spend more time satisfying the compiler instead of your clients or end users? Are you frustrated with demanding languages that seem to get in your way, instead of getting the work done? Are you using Rails, and want to dig deeper into the underlying Ruby language? If so, then we've got a language and book for you! Ruby 1.9 is the latest version of Ruby. It has many compelling features, including multinationalization support, new block scoping, and better performance. At the same time, the current Ruby 1.8 is still being maintained and is widely used. We're therefore releasing both the Ruby 1.9 version of the PickAxe (this book) alongside the 1.8 version of the PickAxe. Readers can choose the book that matches their environment. Ruby is a fully object-oriented language, much like the classic object-oriented language, Smalltalk. Like Smalltalk, it is dynamically typed (as opposed to Java or C++), but unlike Smalltalk, Ruby features the same conveniences found in modern scripting languages, making Ruby a favorite tool of intelligent, forward-thinking programmers and the basis for the Rails web framework. This is the reference manual for Ruby, including a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules (including all the new and changed methods introduced by Ruby 1.9). It also includes all the new and changed syntax and semantics introduced since Ruby 1.8. Learn about the new parameter passing rules, local variable scoping in blocks, fibers, multinationalization, and the new block declaration syntax, among other exciting new features.

Programming Ruby 1.9: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide (Facets of Ruby)

Hunt, Andy

Thomas,Dave

Success in today's IT environment requires you to view your career as a business endeavor. In this book, you'll learn how to become an entrepreneur, driving your career in the direction of your choosing. You'll learn how to build your software development career step by step, following the same path that you would follow if you were building, marketing, and selling a product. After all, your skills themselves are a product. The choices you make about which technologies to focus on and which business domains to master have at least as much impact on your success as your technical knowledge itself--don't let those choices be accidental. We'll walk through all aspects of the decision-making process, so you can ensure that you're investing your time and energy in the right areas. You'll develop a structured plan for keeping your mind engaged and your skills fresh. You'll learn how to assess your skills in terms of where they fit on the value chain, driving you away from commodity skills and toward those that are in high demand. Through a mix of high-level, thought-provoking essays and tactical "Act on It" sections, you will come away with concrete plans you can put into action immediately. You'll also get a chance to read the perspectives of several highly successful members of our industry from a variety of career paths. As with any product or service, if nobody knows what you're selling, nobody will buy. We'll walk through the often-neglected world of marketing, and you'll create a plan to market yourself both inside your company and to the industry in general. Above all, you'll see how you can set the direction of your career, leading to a more fulfilling and remarkable professional life.

The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life)

Job Hunting & Careers

Written for novice to intermediate Rails developers, Rails Recipes: Rails 3 Edition is packed with solutions to 70 of the most vexing problems you're likely to face on the job. From building custom forms and powering pages with JQuery to integrating with legacy databases, it's all here. Each recipe has been updated to reflect the latest features of Rails 3.1 and each lays out a distinctive solution to a problem you may be facing today or could well encounter tomorrow. In addition, you'll find half the book is stocked with new eye-opening solutions to such common problems as how to extend Rails, test and deploy your sites, or add a web service to your actions. And each recipe not only lays out a succinct solution, but explains its rationale and the technologies that make it work. Loaded with the insights of a Rails community leader, members of the Rails core team and other experts, this is the book you'll want to have at your side as you craft your next project.

Rails Recipes: Rails 3 Edition

Ruby is the fastest growing and most exciting dynamic language out there. If you need to get working programs delivered fast, you should add Ruby to your toolbox. This book is the only complete reference for both Ruby 1.9 and Ruby 2.0, the very latest version of Ruby. 2013 marks the 20th anniversary of the Ruby language. We're proud that throughout its history, we've continued to cover the latest version of Ruby. Would you like to go from first idea to working code much, much faster? Do you currently spend more time satisfying the compiler instead of your clients or end users? Are you frustrated with demanding languages that seem to get in your way, instead of getting the work done? Are you using Rails, and want to dig deeper into the underlying Ruby language? If so, then we've got a language and book for you! Ruby is a fully object-oriented language, much like the classic object-oriented language, Smalltalk. Like Smalltalk, it is dynamically typed (as opposed to Java or C++), but unlike Smalltalk, Ruby features the same conveniences found in modern scripting languages such as Perl and Python. The combination of the power of a pure object-oriented language with the convenience of a scripting language makes Ruby a favorite tool of intelligent, forward-thinking programmers. The Pickaxe contains four major sections: An acclaimed tutorial on using Ruby. The definitive reference to the language. Complete documentation of all built-in classes, modules, and methods. Complete descriptions of all 97 standard libraries. This is the reference manual for Ruby, including a description of all the standard library modules, a complete reference to all built-in classes and modules (including all the new and changed methods introduced by Ruby 1.9, 1.9.2, 1.9.3, and 2.0). It also includes all the new and changed syntax and semantics introduced since Ruby 1.8. Learn about the new parameter passing rules, local variable scoping in blocks, fibers, and the new block declaration syntax, among other exciting new features. About Ruby 2.0 Ruby 2.0 is a minor update to Ruby 1.9, unlike the more major updates from Ruby 1.8 to Ruby 1.9. The major language changes in Ruby 2.0 are the addition of keyword arguments and the change to use UTF-8 as the default source file encoding. There are a number of additions to the standard library, including: @Enumerator::Lazy@, which adds support for lazy access to potentially infinite lists. Refinements allow you to encapsulate changes to third-party classes, and scope their application to individual source files, preventing your changes from polluting the global application. You'll also find that Ruby 2 is faster, and has memory management improvements that make it more server-friendly. All told, there are over 110 sections of the book that have been flagged and cross-linked to indicate 2.0 content. What You Need This book assumes you have a basic understanding of object-oriented programming. In general, Ruby programmers tend to favor the the command line for running their code, and they tend to use text editors rather than IDEs. * Ruby runs on Windows, Linux, and Macs.

Programming Ruby 1.9 & 2.0: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide (The Facets of Ruby)

Programming

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fowler, Chad. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Fowler, Chad

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Fowler, Chad. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

My Job Went to India: And All I Got Was This Lousy Book

Rails Recipes

Advanced Rails Recipes

Programming Ruby 1.9: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide (Facets of Ruby)

The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life)

Rails Recipes: Rails 3 Edition

The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life)

Programming Ruby 1.9 & 2.0: The Pragmatic Programmers' Guide (The Facets of Ruby)