Episode 299 | Bill Sourour - Paying It Forward

Guest:

Bill Sourour

@BillSourour

Bill Sourour talks with Dave Rael about lessons learned the hard way, making lessons accessible, software consulting, different types of organizations, and making the world a better place

Bill is the founder of DevMastery.com. A 20 year veteran programmer, architect, consultant, and teacher, he helps individual developers and billion dollar organizations become more successful every day.

Chapters: 3:04 - Dave introduces the show and Bill Sourour4:49 - Bill's desire to "pay it forward"6:05 - The audience for Bill's written content8:18 - How Bill got started in software12:33 - Lessons from theater and parenting applied to software16:04 - The things that "light Bill up"17:28 - The people and business sides of software consulting19:19 - Working with government and large business clients21:07 - The downside of automating away jobs23:37 - Bill's story of failure - taking a problem at face value and missing an opportunity to reframe it, letting pride get in the way, and losing sight of personal care in the process33:04 - Bill's success story - Quickly improving the impact of public health efforts34:52 - How Bill stays current with what he needs to know38:01 - Bill's book recommendation38:55 - Bill's top 3 tips for delivering more value40:23 - Keeping up with Bill

Resources: The Dev Mastery Newsletter Signup Bill on Free Code Camp How to Win the Coding Interview - Bill Sourour Finding Time to Become a Better Developer - Bill Sourour Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship - Robert C. Martin "Uncle Bob" Martin on Developer On Fire How to conquer legacy code - Bill Sourour The 100% Correct Coding Style Guide - Bill Sourour Putting comments in code: the good, the bad, and the ugly. - Bill Sourour When Programmers are Asked to do the Unethical - Panel at South By Southwest - March, 2018

Bill's book recommendation: Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design (Robert C. Martin Series) - Robert C. Martin

Bill's top 3 tips for delivering more value: Don't code exhausted Join the Church of Test-Driven Development Spend some time with the problem rather than taking requirements or requests at face value