Slashdot Mirror
Best Software Writing I
meryl (Meryl K. Evans) writes "Having been in process management in a software organization for over ten years, I've seen too many articles and books on the topic that worked better than Valium for putting me to sleep especially since they have no side effects. You know that Joel Spolsky is one of the best writers on the topic of software. However, in this book he stands aside and lets others demonstrate that he isn't the only one who can write about software in English and captivate you." Read on for Evans' review.
Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky
author
Joel Spolsky, editor
pages
328
publisher
Apress
rating
8
reviewer
Meryl K. Evans
ISBN
1590595009
summary
29 essays by multiple authors covering a range of development-related topics.
Joel on Software fans won't be disappointed in the selection of authors as they deal with the concepts Spolsky writes about on his site. Some readers may be expecting a book solely on software development. Even Joel goes beyond this. Some folks might be disappointed that most of the articles, blog entries, speeches, and essays are available somewhere on the Web. I only recognize a few of the authors and their articles, though, so I would've never known about the others had I not found this book.
The essays cover a wide range of development-related topics. They include coding style, outsourcing programmers, dealing with Excel as a database (gag, gag), using social software (and the things that are right and wrong with these shared spaces), emerging digital rights, and defining the two-phase commit process a la Starbucks. A few of them are nothing but comics. The one on Windows search will knocks readers out of their chairs laughing, at least it did me.
The book also contains business-related essays that address a few problems affecting many companies -- namely team compensation and forced overtime which often spills over the weekend. Joel introduces every essay and includes notes clarifying abbreviations, names, or terms that you most likely know. But other people who would benefit from the book may not -- cut Joel some slack for providing these notes.
The manager benefits from the book because she gains insight into the developer's perspective, which could help her become a better leader. The developer benefits because many of the issues covered can affect him no matter what language he uses for development. If you belong to neither management nor development, the best way to decide if the book is for you or not is to review the table of contents and reviews. If you find only one or two interesting possibilities, search for them online instead.
I'm one of those who belong to neither group. My software organization background has been along the lines of an analyst and process manager. Even I find that most of the essays are enjoyable or educational. Only one or two lost me.
While most of the content is available on the Internet for free and all of you can find it, the book is worth the bucks. It's nice having a collection of high-quality writing related to software and the business in one place instead of trawling the Web for it. Furthermore, you get an opportunity to read offline -- if you manage to tear yourself away from the monitor every now and then at least; I read most of the book while traveling on an airplane. The flight flew by, thanks to the book. I appreciated and absorbed the essays better by reading them in the book than I would have had I read them online.
You can purchase Best Software Writing I from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The essays cover a wide range of development-related topics. They include coding style, outsourcing programmers, dealing with Excel as a database (gag, gag), using social software (and the things that are right and wrong with these shared spaces), emerging digital rights, and defining the two-phase commit process a la Starbucks. A few of them are nothing but comics. The one on Windows search will knocks readers out of their chairs laughing, at least it did me.
The book also contains business-related essays that address a few problems affecting many companies -- namely team compensation and forced overtime which often spills over the weekend. Joel introduces every essay and includes notes clarifying abbreviations, names, or terms that you most likely know. But other people who would benefit from the book may not -- cut Joel some slack for providing these notes.
The manager benefits from the book because she gains insight into the developer's perspective, which could help her become a better leader. The developer benefits because many of the issues covered can affect him no matter what language he uses for development. If you belong to neither management nor development, the best way to decide if the book is for you or not is to review the table of contents and reviews. If you find only one or two interesting possibilities, search for them online instead.
I'm one of those who belong to neither group. My software organization background has been along the lines of an analyst and process manager. Even I find that most of the essays are enjoyable or educational. Only one or two lost me.
While most of the content is available on the Internet for free and all of you can find it, the book is worth the bucks. It's nice having a collection of high-quality writing related to software and the business in one place instead of trawling the Web for it. Furthermore, you get an opportunity to read offline -- if you manage to tear yourself away from the monitor every now and then at least; I read most of the book while traveling on an airplane. The flight flew by, thanks to the book. I appreciated and absorbed the essays better by reading them in the book than I would have had I read them online.
You can purchase Best Software Writing I from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Links to the essays in Best Software Writing can be found here: http://brevity.org/misc/bestswi.html
As usual, the book is cheaper at amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1590 595009/qid=1126809765/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-2832 463-9709664?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
(Don't worry, no referrer id in the link, I'm not trying to get rich off of you)
Referrer-free Link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590595009/ 104-8120704-9951931
Even $17 seems like a lot for something you can find for free on the internet.
You do realize that Joel didn't write any of these essays, right?
IT conversations have a recently recorded interview with Joel in which he tells about the book. Great stuff.
IT Conversations's interview with Joel
-- A Mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems. - Paul Erdös
You can find links to all the articles in the book here:
http://brevity.org/misc/bestswi.html
I just finished reading this book a few days ago (mostly at the beach, no less), and I think some of the articles were wonderful, and a few had me counting the pages until the next chapter. Overall it is a great book that will live in my library for many, many years.
I used to recommend (well, I still do, actually) Writing Solid Code by Steve Maguire to programmers. (Nowadays I guess it's a bit C-centric, but the principles are the same, and I'd say if you have trouble grasping the code concepts in the book, you're not ever going to write solid code anyway.)
Some people had the typical "Ha! Microsoft! What can they tell me about writing solid code?!" attitude.
A while later they'd finish it, and usually derisively tell me they'd learned nothing from it.
Almost invariably with such people, I would later look at the code they produced and think, "You're right. You learned absolutely nothing from that book."
Ah well. Such is life.
There's a somewhat less fawning review at http://www.larkware.com/BookReviews/best.html
Sigs? Sigs? We don't need no steenkin' sigs.
I bought and read this book, I have been meaning to write up a full review, but never have the time, so here is a short jist. It was a waste. The few gems on social software design and humorous cartoons are the only redeming quality. Joel's intros are fine, but his choice in articles is pretty poor.
The worst part is that the only article that actually dealt with software development/design/writing is a 2 page jib at microsoft about their window search system interface. The rest is mostly filled with management info that has nothing to do with software writing. There were three or four articles on performance metrics for 'knowledge workers' that all said the same thing ("They suck"). There was one delusional article that talked about how only Python coders were real coders and all other coders are fake pansies. That same author talk about how to recruit "hackers" (ie: Python coders). His basic jist was to offer a work environment just like your mother's basement and the uber python coding hackers will beg you to let them work for you.
A better title would have been "Mangerial info and other crap from people loosely related to computers: Final Volume"
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs