Slashdot Mirror

We've all known real reasons as employees to keep some confidentiality in the review process.

- How many of us would invite a high-visibility public debate of our personal, individual performance reviews?
- How many of us would STAY if high-visibility public debates of our personal, individual performance reviews were added to the job description?

"Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams" is a favorite book recommendations in the computer industry, but it applies to so many industries. (Finally available as an eBook from http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/PW-ebook.html ) Their long-researched conclusion required review confidentiality to keep the data-gathering process functioning. Without it, the whole process would break down and become meaningless.

Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems by Ross Anderson, professor at Cambridge University.

It replaces and expands upon Applied Cryptography by Bruce Schneier, and Practical Cryptography by Ferguson & Schneier to make a more holistic approach to security encompassing the entire system, not just using the latest (coolest) encryption techniques. Most real-life systems are broken by going around or ignoring the encrpytion.

Another classic is

TCP/IP Illustrated by the late Richard Stevens
Most people need/read only Volume I: The Protocols, but there is also Volume II: The Implementation which is wonderful albeit with a smaller following, though Volume III which is considered a big disappointment to many (I've never read the vol 3) isn't worry buying unless you're specifically interested in its contents.

The only serious alternative to TCP/IP Illustrated is Douglas Comer's series Internetworking with TCP/IP which is the series I learnt about TCP/IP programming with. Still highly recommended.

For Software development, The Mythical Man-Month by computing pioneer Frederick Brooks should be required reading, and Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister should be handed to every new IT/IM or software manager with their promotion or hiring (if they haven't read it already). Computing would suck so much less if we all held ourselves accounting to the basic ideas in these two books.

For historic, 3 books + bonus item that would have to be included are:

Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs by Niklaus Wirth

Cybernetics: Or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine in 1948 by Norbert Wiener

Computing Machinery and Intelligence, by Alan Turing and published in 1950 in Mind

Computer Lib/Dream Machines by Ted Nelson in 1974, is most often pointed to as the "birth" of hypermedia.

The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, which featured the Altair 8800 on its cover.

...whith the publishing of "Peopleware" by DeMarco and Lister:
http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/pw.html

I first read about it in "The Art Of Designing Embedded Systems" by Jack Ganssle. The crux of the argument:
1. It takes 15 minutes to fully make a context switch
2. Interruptions (especially in cubes) come about every 10 minutes, on average
3. The most productive coders were about 260% more productive than the least productive coders
4. The most productive coders had quiet workspaces without interruptions. Experience, etc, mattered much less in the productivity rates.
5. Therefore, quiet workspaces can yield a 260% increase in productivity.

Following that, private offices are *cheaper* (by an order of magnitude or more -- see Ganssle for the calculations) than cubicles, because the increased productivity swamps any increase in cost/sq ft.

I looked up Peopleware", by De Marco and Lister and found (among others) this site. There were several brief "reviews", including this one:

"This book was one of the most influential books I've ever read. The best way to describe it would be as an Anti-Dilbert Manifesto. Ever wonder why everybody at Microsoft gets their own office, with walls and a door that shuts? It's in there. Why do managers give so much leeway to their teams to get things done? That's in there too. Why are there so many jelled SWAT teams at Microsoft that are remarkably productive? Mainly because Bill Gates has built a company full of managers who read Peopleware. I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is the one thing every software manager needs to read... not just once, but once a year."
-Joel Spolsky,
Founder, Fog Creek Software
Joel on Software

I am not certain what is a "jelled SWAT team" but I assume it is good? (Since it is Thanksgiving, I have to wonder if it would taste good. Jelly, jello, jelled, ... Nah.)

I would guess that the book is good. If Microsoft had ordered its SWAT teams to make security the first, rather than the last, consideration, Windows probably would be a lot more secure.

I'm amazed to see so many suggestions regarding promotion possibilities -- I wonder if you all work in a different IT industry to me. I'm only 30 (don't laugh), but I'm already as high up the technical career ladder as it's possible to be at my workplace (and changing jobs would be a demotion based on the job ads I've seen). To get any higher I'd have to become a manager, which doesn't yet excite me. Isn't there more to a career than just climbing the ziggurat?

Anyway, if you are a manager, the best advice I can give is to find a copy of Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, read it, and use its advice. It's a thin book, but it is +100 Insightful when it comes to employees. Some links on the book:

• Publisher's info at Dorset House
• Slashdot review from some time in the past (can't find a year on the page).
• Freshmeat review from 2002.
• Atlantic Systems Guild, consulting company run by the book's authors.

There are books on these topics that were written several years ago. You should (or must) read Peopleware and The Mythical Man Month. Both of them have been revised recently to comment and argue about what has changed through the years (HINT: not much). How can they become so timeless? Because they talk about PEOPLE.

Use the "look inside" feature of Amazon, you will be able to read some interesting pages (they will make you want more). You can also read a sample chapter of Peopleware from their publishers.

Fh

Fh

BS7799 is the British Standard for Data Protection. We had to have a paper free desk and shred everything. Despite having a double sided laser printer, all the damn staff still printed single. Everyone is a lot greener back in Australia.

Anyway, moral from that successful drive is... get in early. Twenty something staff? That's nothing. Push it through now. What came across most was that the accreditations make sure you have 'Systems' in place. New staff come in knowing the system. Old staff, well they're not going to be easy.

Read Peopleware under the section 'Believers But Questioners' and work towards that. At least then you get to read a darn good book on company time.

Buy this book, Handbook of Walthroughs, Inspections, and Technical Reviews by Daniel Freedman and Gerald Weinberg.

OK, so the article is about coding for security, but it's worth considering Tom DeMarco's line in his excellent book Why Does Software Cost So Much ? where, he says, the correct answer is "Compared to what ??".

Kicking those who manage complexity is always going to be easy - but until you can do better then you're not really helping.

The book is well worth a read... if only to shut up all those metrics freaks...

T

• Peopleware

• Are Your Lights On?
• Becoming a Technical Leader
• Creating a Software Engineering Culture
• Designing Quality Databases with IDEF1X Information Models
• An Introduction to General Systems Thinking: Silver Anniversary Edition
• Managing Expectations: Working with People Who Want More, Better, Faster, Sooner, NOW!

In Tom DiMarco's article "Software Productivity: the Covert Agenda" From his book Why Does Software Cost So Much? DiMarco explains why deadlines are almost always false, and why developers are asked to estimate their own schedules. It makes for an interesting read.