Not long ago I’ve read the book “Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar” – a great book, it really helped me see some things that weren’t clear enough for me before - which is the last book written by James Marcus Bach who is also the co-author of “Lessons Learned in Software Testing”. More about the author and his book can be found on the following website http://www.buccaneerscholar.com
NOTE to all of you that live in Bucharest, Romania and want to read this book: I can borrow you my copy, all you have to do is to leave me a comment or contact me in any other way so that I can reach you after that.
As a short description I can tell you that this book caught my attention the moment I finished reading it’s first page and in two nights it was done. The stories and the way in which it is written have kept me engaged all the time. The book covers a wide range of subjects starting with the elements (“The elements of My Self-Education Method“) and principles used by the author when learning new things and continuing with a list of self-evaluation heuristics that can help you discover where you are at a moment in time. Towards the end of the book the author shares some of his knowledge and views on how to “buccaneer in the long run”.
Another great thing about this book is that it is full of quotes named by the author “Great Secrets“, which can be in handed sometimes especially when you look for something to grab on. Here are some of my favorites:
- “At a distance many fun things to learn look scary“
- “If I try to understand, but fail, that’s progress“
- “Whenever I learn something new I keep expectations low, and aspirations high” (expectations = are what I know I can do; aspirations = are what I hope I can do)
- “Most people, most of the time, don’t try it very hard“
- “Everything I learn is a gateway to everything else I will ever learn“
To end this post I will say that this is a great book for all of you that have difficulties in figuring out how to learn new things without having the impression of failure, or how to self evaluate you or for those of you that are just looking for example stories.