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Joel On Software
The essays in this book are even-handed. While he focuses on Windows, Spolsky is not a fanatic believer in one approach over another; if C# works better than Visual Basic for a specific task, so be it. His approach is refreshing when so much is written by opinionated members of the "Microsoft is the source of all evil" camp.
Spolsky starts with down-to-earth topics, such as how to estimate the length of time programming tasks will require, and the ratio of QA people to developers needed for a healthy product. He then moves on to share his thoughts on managing developers and higher-level software-related issues.
One of the book's opening salvos, "the Joel Test for Better Code," is a simple "irresponsible" test that Spolsky created to provide insight into how well a development organization is functioning. The test looks for things like using source-code control, and having testers create daily builds with a single click of a button. As someone who has worked companies that would have failed the "Joel Test" miserably, I can attest to the importance of these criteria.
The chapter on Unicode is a short and to-the-point overview on the topic and should be required reading for any software developer and product manager who wants an introduction to Unicode.
Clean and bug-free code is a common thread in several essays in the first part of the book. Spolsky explains the inappropriateness of developers performing QA and stresses the need to "eat your own dog food." Having developers conduct testing is a waste of resources and upsets them just the same; forcing developers to use their own product will motivate them to create a better one.
In "Fire and Motion," Spolsky takes issue with the "architect astronauts" who generate vague technology announcements that are often counterproductive by creating fear, uncertainty and doubt. While these announcements may drive competitors to waste cycles in converting their code base to the latest technology, they offer no real substance. Misguided companies, mesmerized by the promise of new technologies or by demands from numskull customers, can sap years of developer time when product improvement should have taken precedence.
In "Biculturalism," Spolsky dispassionately discusses the differences in world view between Windows and UNIX programmers. Spolsky probably rankled some UNIX fans, but I share his perspective. Spolsky points out that UNIX developers are just as smart as Windows developers, but when it comes to understanding their end users and having empathy for customers, they tend to fall short.
The "Gorilla Guide to Interviewing" is relevant to all hiring managers. Spolsky describes some of the traits of his ideal hires. Those who, in one sentence, are both smart and "get things done." Spolsky believes in hiring people that can perform multiple roles. Spolsky believes in making a "sharp" decision about the candidate, and finds insulting that a hiring manager would not find the interviewee good enough for his own team but would refer him to another team. Spolsky shares one of his hiring secrets: never hire a "maybe." This might seem obvious, but he details why it's better to reject a good candidate than to hire a bad one. Firing can cost a lot of money, time and effort. Additionally, Spolsky suggests questions to ask during an interview and the necessary "what not to ask."
The "Iceberg Secret Revealed" discusses the manner in which customers express their pain, and points out that customers often don't really know what they want. It is the product manager's job to find a solution that will solve their customer's pain while keeping an eye on the market she is addressing. Just listening to customers without proper filters, is as Spolsky points out, a recipe for disaster. And the Iceberg Secret? Spolsky illustrates in five different ways how customers and stakeholders only look at the tip of the iceberg, and not at the substance beneath it.
In one of the shorter chapters, a missive on measurement, Spolsky addresses the prickly issue of measuring performance in companies. In addition to his own insights on measuring performance, he recommends Measuring and Managing Performance in Organizations by Robert Austin. I will add that to my reading list.
Spolsky wrote an introduction to In Search of Stupidity . He offers there the "geek's" perspective on what it takes to make a successful software company, taking as a starting point the ten largest software companies in 1984 and the equivalent list of 2001. His conclusion is that "no software company can succeed unless a programmer is at the helm." With his usual even handedness, he is quick to point out some of the debacles programmers are responsible for. In the example he gives, Netscape's disastrous rewriting of their code base and almost complete loss of market share while they were doing it. His bottom line? To succeed, a company needs a management team that love and thoroughly understand programming and understand and love business. Not as easy as it sounds.
In his five "Strategy Letters," Spolsky writes about issues that are relevant to anyone making strategic business decisions in the software industry. He starts with company growth modes by comparing Ben & Jerry's to Amazon. He then discusses the classic "Chicken and the Egg" problem when building new platforms. His example is still relevant -- few will develop .NET-based clients until a large number of end users have the .NET engine installed on their PCs and end users will not install it until there are enough applications that require it. Spolsky moves on to discuss backward compatibility, open source economics and the myth of bloatware.
Spolsky points out that despite the growing size of applications, the cost of disk space has plummeted even faster. This may be true, but Spolsky does not address the programs' resulting sluggishness despite more and more processing power. Spolsky wraps up the essay by dismissing the notion of coming out with a "lite" version for a given software product. I agree that lite versions do not always satisfy everyone, but they can be a great way to keep out low-end competitors from entering the market in addition to a way to introduce customers to the high-end product.
The chapter about Microsoft losing the API war is a classic. Spolsky starts with the seemingly outlandish assertion that Microsoft lost the API war. After apologizing for his "grandiloquence and pomposity," he goes on to build a convincing case that if Microsoft has in fact not lost the war, they are definitely in danger of doing so. He starts with the diminishing interest in the Windows API as a development platform. He then describes how two camps inside Microsoft (the "Raymond Chen" and the "MSDN Magazine" groups) are influencing Microsoft's approach to their developers' tools. The former group emphasizes creating a backward-compatible operating system, free of bugs and impervious to third-party applications' errors that can harm it. On the other hand is the MSDN group, promoting the latest and greatest Microsoft has to offer. As Spolsky sees it, the latter group has the upper hand, and because of this, Microsoft is losing their developer base to simpler, more easily deployed platforms.
In part 4 of the book, Spolsky takes on Microsoft's .NET strategy. He describes Microsoft's tendency to create FUD in the marketplace with vague, hollow statements, and details his own company's reasons for not adopting .NET anytime soon. Spolsky wraps up with a very straightforward feature request: a linker for .NET. This would seem to be an obvious feature, but Microsoft so far doesn't agree. Microsoft is acting as though they want to win the development platform war in a single sweep. At the same time, independent software vendors (ISVs) are resisting, because they have to guarantee backward compatibility and support for everything their customers run.
My only complaint about the book is that it's too short. On my bookshelf, it resides next to the Mythical Man Month, another favorite.
Spolsky is knowledgeable, funny and free of unnecessary religious fervor. Joel on Software is a must-read for developers, product managers and those who want more insight into the world of developing software.
Daniel Shefer is a Software Product Management professional and has written numerous articles on this topic. You can purchase Joel on Software from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Joel is assembling a volume of "the best software essays" of 2004 and is taking reader nominations. Suggest something if you have a favorite, or just click through and read everyone else's picks.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The entire book is available on the Web for free, since the book is basically the collection of Joel's best articles. He cleaned them up, according to the introduction, but anyone willing to "look inside the book" (tm) before getting it, has a chance to go through 100% of it.
For those that don't know the background to the story, Joel published a "How Microsoft Lost the API War" essay on his blog which stirred up enough developers at Microsoft that the company decided it would backport their new windowing and rendering system ("Avalon") and their new networking and messanging system ("Indigo") to previous versions of Windows, including XP. Before this essay, the said technologies had been designed for Windows Longhorn only.
.NET falls on listening ears in Redmond, time will tell.
Point being that Joel has a lot of influence and a lot of respect among the Microsoft folks. I also hope his suggestion of a linker for
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
I guess that's why you're pimping it here on Slashdot, huh.
Sorry dude! I looked at your site and read through a few of the articles. I didn't find anything interesting to me. In contrast, nearly all of the articles by Joel have been interesting to me (I have read most of them more than once over the years).
Do not pass Go, do not collect $0.02.
Hmm, when I went poking around I found this quote almost immediately..
....
'First of all, failing to write a spec is the single biggest unnecessary risk you take in a software project. It's as stupid as setting off to cross the Mojave desert with just the clothes on your back, hoping to "wing it."'
I don't think you are really justified to call the guy an idiot with your single, most likely very out of context, quote. Here is where I got this quote.
In "Biculturalism," Spolsky dispassionately discusses the differences in world view between Windows and UNIX programmers. Spolsky probably rankled some UNIX fans, but I share his perspective. Spolsky points out that UNIX developers are just as smart as Windows developers, but when it comes to understanding their end users and having empathy for customers, they tend to fall short.
I should probably read the thing firsthand, but if this is an accurate summary then it is garbage. This "difference in "world view" between Windows and UNIX programmers is such an overly simplistic and stupid straw man argument.
Politics are orthogonal to software indeed, why don't you follow your own goddamn sentiment Joel.
Having worked a ton of jobs as an electrical, hardware, and software engineer I can tell you that this generalization makes absolutely no sense. In general, there is absoultely no macroscopic correlation between software usability and underlying operating system platform. Software development is such a complex process, and for anything other than some shitty little bug tracking tool, one that involves more than a few people. How these teams are managed (that ranges from methodology, to choosing the smart/professional people in the first place) has absolutely nothing to do with some UNIX/Windows dichotomy you're promulgating. There are of course the zealots, of which you are a Windows/Microsoft one, even if you don't realize it. This is from the fact that you draw this simplistic separation, no matter how charitable you are about the other side.
When you get out of the realm of the shrink wrap software market from Best Buy, you realize there is a huge multi billion dollar industry of software used for things like manufacturing and design, and no Joel, they're not all programmers tools.
For many segments of this market, the operating system used becomes a secondary issue to having an integrated or working system.
For a high profile example, there was the LAX shutdown due to the shitty designed Windows based ATC system. Apparently, according to you, at least the developers had empathy for the poor bastards flying to LAX when their shitty system didn't work. The fact of the matter is that this could and probably would have happened if the same team of idiots had chosen to use a UNIX system. It is not an issue of smartness or UNIX people people being as smart as Windows people.