As a bystander but friend of Shawn's, I can say that over the last few years he has demonstrated an incredible ability to quickly learn and master concepts, then pass that information on to others.
I've seen him go from someone who didn't know anything about web dev at all, to a master of what's going on with React and its ecosystem. He's added expertise on Svelte and other tools as well.
Shawn excels at a lot of "big picture analysis" type thinking (which makes sense given his prior financial background), and I always find his comments and presentations insightful and highly informative.
I haven't yet had time to read through this new book due to my own tasks, but based on the blog posts I've seen him write leading up to this, and the preview material he's tweeted, I have full confidence that this book is going to be an excellent resource for other developers.
As for the price, Shawn's clearly put a lot of time and effort into writing this. If you have questions about his ability to do so and the likely quality, I'd encourage you to read through some of his blog posts to get a sense of how he writes:
I think GP's point is that I would be similarly skeptical of taking parenting advice "from diapers to diplomas" from someone who hadn't yet had their first-born blow out a birthday candle, regardless of how well-edited or how much effort they put into publishing that advice.
To me, it's not about the $40; it's about advice on "the full journey from Code Newbie to Senior Developer" from someone who is probably much closer to the former than the latter.
I've seen him go from someone who didn't know anything about web dev at all, to a master of what's going on with React and its ecosystem. He's added expertise on Svelte and other tools as well.
Shawn excels at a lot of "big picture analysis" type thinking (which makes sense given his prior financial background), and I always find his comments and presentations insightful and highly informative.
I haven't yet had time to read through this new book due to my own tasks, but based on the blog posts I've seen him write leading up to this, and the preview material he's tweeted, I have full confidence that this book is going to be an excellent resource for other developers.
As for the price, Shawn's clearly put a lot of time and effort into writing this. If you have questions about his ability to do so and the likely quality, I'd encourage you to read through some of his blog posts to get a sense of how he writes:
https://www.swyx.io/writing/