Most importantly, code something in c++! Being "book-smart" with nothing to show for it is pretty much useless. A simple Snake or Tetris clone in SDL is a super rewarding first project, or you could give Advent of Code a go as it lets you solve a lot of cool puzzles that fit in a couple of hours at worst.
As for books, I can recommend Effective Modern C++ by Scott Meyers. CppCast is a great podcast that can get you up to speed on the C++ ecosystem.
Why exactly? Current mainstream programming languages have just started to move away from the “fancy C” paradigm (only named functions, classes, imperative control flow constructs) to “prototype ML” paradigm (lambda functions, records, user-defined operators). These features make languages way more expressive (enabling things like SwiftUI), so understanding language nuances will become even more important as more advanced language features find their way into popular languages. Obviously you do not need to be a an expert on compilers, but most powerful languages need some time investment in order to be used at their fullest potential.
And if you collapse, you will almost certainly die, unless you are, essentially, lucky: supplies, survival skills, clan, etc.
If the author is actually telling the truth, it is a classic survivor bias. Sure that will involve some useful stuff, but also it is survivor bias in the sense that they randomly survived and others did not, and they don't know what the others did or did not do to live.
I thought the same thing. The story and style of writing just come across absurdly. Does this sound to people like the writing voice of a man nearing fifty in a senior role at apple?
It reads like a kid responding to a writing prompt on Reddit. Small vocabulary, constant “lol”s, too much detail for something that supposedly happened 10+ years before, constantly making references to catch phrases. It’s not even good fanfiction.
>We were walking and it was funny to me absolutely nobody who worked there said hello or acknowledged him - and most people honestly seemed to take awkward turns likely to avoid him.
By statements like that, people who worked at Apple under Steve should be able to tell if this is a true story or not.
