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Cube Farm
The book chronicles Blunden's travails as a fresh Cornell grad finding out his degree is useless. After waiting tables, he discovers Java is hot, and gets a job in the incredibly dysfunctional R&D department of Lawson Software, one of those companies that makes horribly dull but necessary business software. Young Blunden is shunted from one doomed project to the next as internal divisions compete with each other (and internally) for territory. The code base is millions of lines of ancient K&R C with all the comments stripped out (!) for speed of compilation. Only a few people understand the entire system to any degree, and these Illuminati crush any attempt to create or disseminate any documentation since that would erode their power base. Any projects that might threaten their monopoly are dispatched by the simple expedient of not responding to any emails or phone calls or attending meetings.
Cube Farm is written in a conversational, semi-edgy style that I found very easy to read, though occasionally annoying when it gets too hip. The subject is technical, but the theme is purely human foible, and Blunden makes an effort to make things understandable even by the non-geeky. So you don't have to be a nerd to understand the book - it would sure help you appreciate it, though.
Important characters are assigned descriptive names such as the Puppet Master, the Godfather, the Wax Master, Mike and Ike, and the Mad Hungarian. This may sound a bit cheap, but works well and makes it easy to keep track of the defectis personae. Everything is well partitioned, and Dance of Death woodcuts enliven the pages.
The obvious question, Why you would read something so horribly depressing? There are only negative lessons to be learned here. Well, in many ways Cube Farm is the informal, nasty version of what you'd get by reading books like Death March (Yourdon, 2003 2nd ed), Herding Cats (Rainwater, 2002), and Software Runaways (Glass, 1997). You can learn a lot from a bad example, like what it means if they won't say Yes or No. Perhaps it'll make you feel better about your own company, which is probably not quite this screwed up. Or there's always good ol' schadenfreude.
Would you give this book to an eager young programmer? Either it would be a bit like taking a sledgehammer to a kitten, or (more likely) it would just all cascade off, unheeded -- "obviously, this could never happen to me." For everyone else, if you've had at least one job or failed project under your belt you might find this horrifically fascinating, similar to watching Repligator. It might help with your next (knock on wood) fine project. Finally, it's a quick read, so I felt my time was well (or at least enjoyably) spent.
You can purchase Cube Farm from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The last thing I want to do after living this for 8 hours a day is to go home and read about it.
There really are no conspiracies, however 'THEM' is surreptitiously trying to make us believe that there are conspiracies in an effort to draw our attention away from what is actually going on. You see if I actually believed in copnsipiracies, then I would be waisting my time trying to prove said conspiracies, instead of trying to uncover the REAL truth. However, since there are no conspiracies, 'THEM' cannot conspire to create conspiracies, and therefore I do not have to waste my time trying to figure them out. Then again, if 'THEM' is trying to make us believe there are conspiracies, when there are really no conspiracies, then there is a conspiracy to creat conspiracies. Hah, they will not fool me - Since there are no conspiracies, there cannot be a conspiracy to create conspiracies, therefore I will still be able to focus on discovering the truth.
Wheres my tinfoil hat, and my 712th printing of Catcher in the Rye, although I don't know why I need another, but I do know that I need it because it hase the new extra black ink.
1. Get hypnotized, kill therapist halfway through session.
2. Hatch grand scheme to fleece company with couple of geeks at work.
3. Wait for scheme to go horribly wrong...if possible engage in flirting, drinking, movie watching and general merry making during this period. Heineken and Kungfu movies are the preferred varieties of entertainment.
4. Engage local frustrated employee to burn up office and evidence of scheme hatched in (3). Members of said species are easily found in office basements usually mumbling to themselves.
5. Quit software job, and obtain employment at neighbor's construction facility.
6. ???
7. PROFIT!!!
I just can't enough of that. Honest.
conversational, semi-edgy style
Translation: Usenet readers will feel at home.
--- Ban humanity.
I thought this was going to be about a beowulf cluster of GameCubes.
Linux Wireless Hardware in the UK
As they say, there's more than one way to take a sledgehammer to a kitten.
> Goodness, how graphic. If someone wants eager young programmers to knock off kittens, there are alternatives.
Every time you post to Slashdot from work, your boss' kitten smashes a young programmer with a sledgehammer. Please, think of the young programmers.
Now I work at S**** F***
you work at Shit Fuck !?!? I have been trying to get a job there for years !
music lover since 1969
Witness their News tab here.
Perhaps it's OT, but would you buy enterprise software from a company that can't even manage a web site?
apple nipple hungry
Did anyone else go to that guys' (old?) company, Lawson Software, just to see if there were any jobs available? Or was I the only one?
I for one welcome our new [insert main topic] overlords.