Programmer and writer. Keeps a running list of the non-fiction he reads, starring the ones he recommends.
loved
Podcast. Yes, yes, yes! We live very distracted lives and most of our working days are filled with shallow tasks and interruptions. Although programmers get the importance of flow, it’s so hard to achieve. Our environments don’t support it, and shallow work is just easier. The book makes a compelling case for why we should double down on deep work, and offers some practical strategies for achie…
Starred on his book list as one he particularly enjoyed or recommends.
Founder and CEO of Get Lighthouse, a management-coaching software company; former product lead at KISSmetrics who writes about leadership and product management.
likedaffiliate link
In our social media, interrupt driven society, it's easy to be constantly multi-tasking. Cal Newport makes a strong case for a better way. By focusing on creating large chunks of time to do "Deep Work", you can get more, quality work done. As an academic, some of his suggesteions could use more polish for working a large, matrix organization, but his central thesis is a good one that anyone can benefit from applying.
His continuously-updated books page, where every book he reads gets a 1-10 rating and a "Why Read it" note; the book links carry his Amazon affiliate tag. The page carries no publication date for individual entries — its own metadata gives article:published_time 2012-12-16 and article:modified_time 2020-10-28, and books were added across that whole span. (undated page)
Programmer in Vancouver who writes at scattered-thoughts.net about databases, programming languages and building tools; author of the Imp/Zest language experiments.
liked
They argue that daily solitude is necessary for emotional processing, and that being deprived of solitude by constant entertainment leads to anxiety and insomnia, your mind racing in bed as it tries to catch up with the work it missed. Nearly a decade after reading I'm thoroughly convinced by this theory.
His standing "Reads that lasted" page — books and essays that had a lasting impact on him. The page carries no visible date; 2026-08-20 is its Last-Modified header.
Engineering leader on Google Chrome; writes about web performance and, lately, about working with AI coding tools.
recommended
Minimize distractions and shallow work. Carve out long stretches for intense focus and complexity. Build rituals and routines to regularly do deep work. Protect this time.
A post distilling his favorite takeaways from about 40 soft-skills books for developers and eng leaders.
Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.
The verdict is what they actually said: loved and liked are explicit; recommended means they told others to get it; uses means they only say they use it; read is a book on their public shelf with no verdict; mixed and disliked are kept too.
A dashed affiliate link, sponsored or their own label means the post disclosed a relationship. It is shown, never hidden.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is for its kind of thing.
The shading behind a date shows how dated a recommendation is, for its kind of thing. Fully green is recent. It drains a quarter at a time as the post gets older, and is empty once it reads as dated.
What counts as old depends on the thing. A laptop praised four years ago has been replaced twice; a book loved twenty years ago is probably still loved. The shading is gone after about:
Hardware, services4 years
Software5 years
Podcasts, courses, other8 years
Books25 years
Stripes mean the post carries no date and the date shown is an estimate. No date at all, no shading.