Spaghetti Code: Detangling Life and Work with Programmer Wisdom

by Christoph C. Cemper, Marcus Tandler (Foreword)

Programmers are some of the least known, understood, or inquired of, people on the planet. One of Christoph C. Cemper’s goals, in his book, Spaghetti Detangling Life and Work with Programmer Wisdom, is to bring more recognition to this vast group of professionals and the amazing work they perform. CEO, of LinkResearchTools, Christoph C. Cemper began programming computers, as a young teen. At that time, the Commodore 64 was one of the first “home” computers. Until then, computers, and time on them, was available only to an elite few. Bill Gates, for instance, wrote in his first book, about the opportunity, at his private school to use access time to a mainframe computer with the school’s teletype machine. Now, from the vantage of more than three decades of being a part of the programmer community, Cemper relates his stories from the front lines of programming. He provides a unique perspective of work and life, as seen from a programmer’s stance. And he provides some “programmer wisdom” to suggest some solutions for the obstacles of work and life. As well, in the book, he advocates for the profession of programmer and the great future available, as part of the programmer community.

Genres: Nonfiction

232 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 30, 2017

Reviews

[Vincent Schaefer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.

Being an IT guy, although a bit older than the author, I really enjoyed this book. I can recommend this, even without being a programmer

[Stephen Yoder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining but far too many commas

Christoph, I enjoyed your book. (I want to make that clear first.) What made this hard to read for me were the incredible number of commas breeding everywhere, slowing down the progression of sentences and thoughts. Perhaps German encourages this kind of thing? I'm unsure. A good, solid book on the values of programming, computer science, and self-analysis.
I rec'd an ARC in exchange for the possibility that I might write a review, and for that I'm grateful.

[Komsit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for software engineer

I didn’t finish the book. I have two main critics:

The book cover wide ranges of software engineer topics but you probably already know most of them if you are software engineer. You may enjoy this if you are coming for other profession.

The book is not well organized and contain lots unrelated topics. For example, I read plastic bag in whale stomach in freemium chapter, ergonomics keyboard in hot fix.

Some topics are interesting but I was put off by these unrelated stuff.

[Reneta · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a software engineer from the 1980’s, I related to every chapter. I wish it had been around when I tried to explain my “programming job” to family and friends. The book makes it easy to understand “programmer speak” like feature creep, version control, and waterfall optimism. Most impressively, the author interactively relates each aspect of the software “world” to real world situations, making the read enticing, interesting, and relatable to the non-programmers out there. Congratulations on a fine book! I cannot wait to share it!

[Jay Carper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Where is this going?

Spaghetti Code isn't badly written in that it's easily readable and the technical composition is good apart from a strong tendency toward comma abuse. Many of the essays were enjoyable and nostalgic, reminding me of my own early experiences in IT. On the downside, the book rambles, and I frequently wondered what was the author's point. Is this really going somewhere?

[Lisa Seiber · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was well-written and I am excited to pass it along!

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goodreads giveaway