This talk was at the right level for me. Briefly it covers the goal, a broad list of implementations, and ultimately resolves to interesting questions currently being considered for Zig.
That book is nonsense, so I would disregard it in this context.
Programming language matters. You can't really achieve
expertise with some in any amount of time. Choose a simple language at first. Also, I recommend learning more languages than just one. It gets easier the more you know.
The opponent is software complexity. The task is iterate design, to create a simple solution. Money will be made or lost depending on whether the solution is both simple and useful enough.
Scrum, management, meetings distract at best, crush at worst, this critical creative process.
In my experience, writing things down brings additional insight, more than an accident.
When I first heard Leslie Lamport say “If you think without writing, you only think you’re thinking.”, I thought it was a bit much, but now I suspect he's right.
To my mind, Jim Henson's death and the resulting loss of his voice, puppet characters, and leadership, dealt a blow to Sesame Street from which it has not really recovered.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_single-assignment_form