#145 The Well-Grounded Python Developer with Doug Farell - Senior Web Engineer & Author

Doug Farell is the Senior Web Engineer at Shutterfly and Author of The Well-Grounded Python Developer, he joined us as our first live webinar guest back in January. Doug has more than 20 years of software development experience in several industries and disciplines.

Doug Farell is the Senior Web Engineer at Shutterfly and Author of The Well-Grounded Python Developer, he joined us as our first live webinar guest back in January. 

Doug has more than 20 years of software development experience in several industries and disciplines. Having been in the industry for many years, Doug fully embraces the concept that "change is the only constant" and can take advantage of emerging technologies and demonstrate the benefits of new technologies to co-workers and management.

He has a real passion for technology and that becomes evident in his book The Well-Grounded Python Developer.  In his perspective, writing skills are very important for software engineers, so he started cultivating them and also working on his verbal communication skills. All of that lead to him starting to write articles for realpython.com. Eventually, he was contacted by an editor to discuss him writing a book and the rest is history. His book is expected to be out during the summer and it’s intended for beginner developers or developers who are familiar with a different language and are looking to know everything about Python. 

Enjoy the show!

We speak about:

  • [04:30] Doug’s background

  • [07:30] Where did your passion for programming come from?

  • [09:12] Overview and milestones of his career.

  • [20:30] What types of things have you been working on?

  • [22:10] How was the change from writing software that interacts with people instead of machines?

  • [24:50] How did your work lead you to your book?

  • [28:25] Tell us about the process of writing your book.

  • [35:10] Who is your target reader?

  • [40:20] The importance of big picture thinking for software developers. 

Resources:

Doug’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougfarrell/ 

Shutterfly on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shutterfly/ 

Check out Doug's book, The Well-Grounded Python Developer: https://www.manning.com/books/the-well-grounded-python-developer 

Get 40% OFF on all Manning products with the code poddatafuturology19

Webinar Recording: https://youtu.be/dMUvXOGUnp0

Thanks to our sponsor:

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Thank you so much, and enjoy the show!