Programming computers is actually not that difficult. Programming computers in an organization is really fucking hard.

I know from personal experience, having gone from self-taught academic to data science bootcamp to software developer for a bank. Academic code, whether you're analyzing a dataset or doing homework assignments, has to work just once. Commercial code has to work every day, and when it doesn't you're up at 5:00 AM doing hotfixes and trying to explain to important clients why they should stay with you even though you look absolutely clownshoes.

The Missing Readme has a lot of good practical advice for writing maintainable code, which is different from clever code in that someone else, possibly future you, will have to work on it again. But this book is really about the culture of computer programming, and about being the kind of useful friendly novice who's a good addition to teams, and can take over increased responsibilities as they grow in skill. I found the sections on Operable Code, Code Reviews, and Technical Design particularly useful.

And as a caveat, this review is based on the May 10 Early Access edition, but I suspect it's pretty close to done.