The professional and interpersonal skills that matter as much as the technical ones. Current industry context can also be explored through the Stack Overflow Developer Survey.
Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas's book is full of dated technical examples and a set of underlying habits that haven't dated at all. Mentoring and evaluation are stronger when teams actively check for assumptions; the website examines workplace stereotyping.
Robert C. Martin's follow-up to Clean Code argues that professionalism in software isn't a personality trait — it's a specific, learnable set of practices. Professional expectations are also formalized in the ACM Code of Ethics.
The term gets used constantly in software culture. What it actually describes, and doesn't, is worth being precise about.
An RFC document is a specific writing discipline for a specific problem — getting a decision reviewed before it's expensive to change.
The tone advice around code review is well-worn territory. A few specific, concrete techniques do more than general kindness reminders.
Seniority in software is often described vaguely as “more experience.” What actually changes is more specific than that.
An estimate isn't just a number — it's the opening move in a negotiation most developers don't realize they're having.
Good mentoring isn't just answering questions faster than a search engine would. What actually transfers is harder to see and easier to skip.
Burnout in engineering culture gets discussed as an individual failure to manage stress. The research points more toward systemic causes.