Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity
- ISBN13: 9781590593899
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Spolsky is knowledgeable, funny and free of unnecessary religious fervor. Joel on Software is a must-read. …having (Joel on Software) in one place, edited, with an index, is probably the best twenty-five dollars you’ll spend this year. — Greg Wilson, Dr. (Joel Spolsky’s) genuine desire to make the software world a better place keeps us coming back for more. — Bruce Hadley, softwareCEO. This book will challenge, encourage, upset, and entertain you. Spolsky knows his stuff, and he’s got the war wounds to prove it. This book is worth the price of admission… — Tom Duff, Duffbert’s Random Musings An entertaining oportunity to get to know one of today’s most in… More >>
Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity
Listen, if you take this guy’s review seriously after reading something like this:
We all know that “bugs” is a synonym for “errors” – producing errors as part of producing code is NOT ok. The words bugs implies a sentient existence ( like ” a bug crept into my code” ) which is dodging responsibility for the “errors” you are introducing.
then there are issues.
“bugs” does not mean “just” errors. Let’s say I read the specs, ask questions to the writer of the spec to clear up ambiguities, program exactly to spec – perfectly, and after I’m finished: something changes in the spec. THAT IS A BUG.
Or, let’s say it gets past spec, development, and Beta stage and their is a request from your users to change something. THAT IS A BUG.
Or, let’s say there is a suggestion of a new feature. THAT IS A BUG.
Bug’s encompass a lot of things besides just “errors”. Think about that and then think about this guy’s rant.
Rating: 5 / 5
Halfway through this book I realised I kept getting more and more irritated until I finally stopped to figure out why I was getting so annoyed.
and cites some really idiotic reasons for why that company is way ahead of all it’s competiition ( because it’s led by a programmer as it’s CEO ).
At first I thought it was because of his comparisons between engineers who program on the unix platform vs. those who program on the windows platform ( according to the author unix programmers are “programmer centric” while windows programmers are “end user centric” ) – that comparison rankled a little bit but it wasn’t a completely egregious statement. I happen to not agree with it but I can see some kind of argument for this theory. I then thought it might have to do something with the fact that he talks highly of Microsoft as a company ( that’s ok with me
No – it turned out that I was getting more and more annoyed with his attitude towards bugs/QA and testing. He recommends 1 tester per 2 programmers as one of his criteria for an organisation scoring well on the “Joel Test”. His attitude towards programming seems to regard bugs as a natural side effect of programming – which is why he recommends a ratio of 2:1 . We all know that “bugs” is a synonym for “errors” – producing errors as part of producing code is NOT ok. The words bugs implies a sentient existence ( like ” a bug crept into my code” ) which is dodging responsibility for the “errors” you are introducing. Seriously – this attitude should be considered gross incompetence in any programmer.
He also comments ( in chapter 1 ) that students learning to program should be taught using C because that exposes the innards of a computer to them ! He does not understand what programming really is – instead he wants to expose irrelevent details like how an array is actually allocated located on the stack. IMHO – teaching programming to a novice using C as your vehicle is forever going to make him either brain-dead or make him really arrogant about “getting pointers” ( rather like the author ).
The author also devotes a chapter to a concept called “Leaky Abstraction”. As an example he cites TCP over IP as an abstraction of guaranteed delivery over an unguaranteed delivery channel – the leakiness that he then cites is that TCP cannot gurantee delivery if say a dog chewed through your network cable ! The example by itself is OK but his argument is specious at best.
Please read his blog if you are interested in what he has to say – don’t waste money on this book.
Rating: 2 / 5
In the software business, there is no shortage of books, advice, seminars, and experts who will provide information on how to be successful — I have seen and heard lots of it.
In this crowd, it is refreshing to come across Joel’s candid, and real world advice. By far the most valuable section is “The Joel Test”. A replacement for the myriad of often complex and confusing measurements of software development teams.
But wait, it gets better. “Five Worlds” is an excellent discussion on exactly why so many other systems are wrong. Different kinds of development shops require different kinds of styles. And the excellent “Ben and Jerry’s vs Amazon” article should be required reading for every wanna-be CEO and business manager.
Overall, and excellent book, and one that, as the title suggests, should be read by everyone even remotely associated with the software industry!
Rating: 5 / 5
Very good insight to the programming industry and why it is the way it is. Very entertaining and eye-opening for anyone in the High tech industry. Will probably irritate anti-Microsoft types from time to time.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is a great source of information about all kinds of matters in the software development world. I especially like the article about Open Source world and why the large brands are supporting it – it is really worth reading. And the last, but not the least – it’s really a fun to read all the articles.
Rating: 5 / 5