It’s rare that I get through a book quickly. I read lots of articles and technical documents, but when choosing between dedicating time to read something or build something, I nearly always choose to build something.

The exception is when Steve publishes a book.

I’ve been “in the trenches” for much of the time period covered by the book and I’ve known Steve for the last 9 of those years. Between my own experience, conversations with Steve and reading his blog, I was at least casually familiar with many of the ideas in the book.

Steve has been banging the “developer drum” as long as I’ve known him. When he first described RedMonk to me as a “developer focused” company, I didn’t get what he meant. Over the years, I’ve slowly understood.

The New Kingmakers takes those ideas and makes them accessible to everyone. Steve presents ideas, statistics and anecdotes and connects those dots clearly to draw an easy-to-understand picture of the tech landscape. The book is well-written, concise and full of meat.

If you work in technology, are interested in the future of business or just want to better understand what is going on with the tech companies you hear about in the news everyday you need to read The New Kingmakers.

You can get the book free from New Relic. If you already have a New Relic account, ask them and they will send you the download link.