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Loading... Dreaming In Codeby Scott Rosenberg
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Within the context of the development of a single software package (a personal information management package named Chandler; developed by the Open Source Applications Foundation, which was established by Lotus developer Mitch Kapor), the author presents a highly readable discussion of the perils and pitfalls of computer programming. It's often argued that if carpenters built houses the way that programmers write software, the first woodpecker would destroy civilization. Scott Rosenberg investigates why this truism is true and why systematic efforts to address the inherent problems in team programming have been unsuccessful. He also explores the open software paradigm in some depth. (  )dickmanikowski | Mar 25, 2009 |   As a product manager, SW development is an interesting topic but I was hoping for more focus and a conclusion. The book's 2007 release misses the fact that Kapor pulled his funding in the 6th year (Jan 2008). I would hope that the final chapter was available online. There are many side bar discussion which most readers should be aware of but in the end my take aways are 1. These guys don't have a clue about what that are doing and 2. They may have been deluded by past successes that they can work their magic again. In some respect "Black Swans" failed to come home to roost. (  )jclyne | Jan 28, 2009 | Rosenberg expected to spend a year following a software project and then write a book about the experience. Ultimately the story of Chandler continues but publishing deadlines couldn't wait. Enjoyed the nostalgia the book provoked but it was also like watching a train wreck. (  )tmdr | Aug 8, 2008 | It's been a long time since I read The Soul of a New Machine, but I don't remember that book getting quite so far into the weeds of hardware development as this one gets into software development. I think Rosenberg's book is great for anyone interested in the process of creating software, but probably not so much outside of that narrow demographic. ( )wanack | Jun 28, 2008 | This book's focus is on the development of the Personal Information Manager system named 'Chandler' (for Raymond Chandler the Mystery writer... Not the character Matthew Perry played on Friends). I found their methodology frustrating and agreed with Hertzfeld's feeling that "...there's got to be at least one person at the center who is breathing life into it. In a ferocious way. And that was lacking." (pp 167) What really made this book worth reading were the detours into the history and historical figures of Software Engineering. Donald Knuth, Fred Brooks, and Alan Kay are all pretty big (and interesting) figures in the industry. (  )dvf1976 | Apr 24, 2008 | 0.047 seconds to build listing
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 1400082463, Hardcover)Their story takes us through a maze of dead ends and exhilarating breakthroughs as they and their colleagues wrestle not only with the abstraction of code but with the unpredictability of human behavior,especially their own. Along the way, we encounter black holes, turtles, snakes, dragons, axe-sharpening, and yak-shaving—and take a guided tour through the theories and methods, both brilliant and misguided, that litter the history of software development, from the famous “mythical man-month” to Extreme Programming. Not just for technophiles but for anyone captivated by the drama of invention, Dreaming in Code offers a window into both the information age and the workings of the human mind. (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:24 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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