Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Man

This book by the well-known software developer, entrepreneur and blogger Joel Spolsky is a comprehensive collection of the most interesting articles that have appeared on the Joel on Software website in the course of the last five years. If you're a devote follower of Joel, like me, there's almost nothing here that you haven't probably already read online. Still, it can be useful to have all this content nicely reorganized and reprinted. As Joel puts it, the book is a heck of a lot more cohesive than the website, where by cohesive I mean «can be read in the bathtub without fear of electrocution.» At the very least, it can be a nice present from a developer to his/her manager, who might get a couple of clues they're still missing. Inside here, there's plenty of clues indeed and Joel will be very happy to share them with his readers, drawing from his experience as developer, program manager at Microsoft, software entrepreneur and Israeli paratrooper. Not everything here has to do with technical matters, but you'll also find something about the economy, managing people, business strategy and insulating pipes. This makes for a pleasant and varied reading, particularly if your ambitions go beyond being a good developer. In any case, you can count on the first third of the book to give you plenty of advice in this respect, while the second third deals with managing developers. The third part is a semi-random collection of topics, the majority of which deal with strategy. At the end of the book, you can find three articles on .NET and an appendix with questions and answers taken from the website. Joel's basic approach can be described as very down-to-earth, beware-of-hype, no-silver-bullet philosophy. This is not to say that what he writes is bland and clichéd. Quite the contrary. He does not refrain from being original and even controversial at times, at the risk of being unpopular in denouncing the excess hype that sometimes surrounds topics like eXtreme Programming or Open Source, or attacking entrenched myths like network transparency or software reuse. In any case, he his always witty, sometimes downright humorous and never haughty.

I've enjoyed reading JoelonSoftware.com for several years now. Joel has a unique down to earth view on computers, programming and business that makes his blog worth reading. He believes in using the right tool for the job, and not just always using a hammer because you have one handy. There are a lot of books and web sites on how business, software, computers and programming should be conducted. Most fail to understand the basics of what they are talking about because the writer has a theory that he thinks will solve everything. But the theory takes on a life of its own, and becomes more important than observed reality. Just the trap many political, religious and self-help demagogues fall into. They become pie-in-the-sky dreamers and less attached to normal life. He seems to have a similar, if slightly younger perspective, on the field as Richard P. Gabriel who wrote his now famous "Worse is Better" essay about 10-15 years ago. Another writer/programmer he reminds me of is Paul Graham. Others I would compare him too, though each if very different in their own ways, are the writings and blog of Wil Wheaton, The Cluetrain Manifesto, and the rants of Fred on Everything (Fred Reed), Jerry Pournelle's Chaos Manor, and much that appears on /.Slashdot. Joel has not tried to generalize his very specific observations into a unified whole theory of all programming and computer management. But that doesn't prevent you, the home reader, from making those generalizations yourself. You may have to prevent yourself from thinking too much of it, least the Law of Leaky Abstractions take over. Joel gives one a good place to start. I've used his "Law of Leaky Abstractions" in discussions I had many times. Also, when I was thinking for a job I used his guide to interviewing when talking to perspective employers. Sure, he wrote it from employers to use, but I was able to easily enough reserve it's principals and applied them to finding out info about the company I was interviewing at. This allowed me find out what the bad interviewers really wanted to know when they didn't know what they wanted. It allowed me to show that I was smart and could get things done to the people who interviewed me. And since I'm employed again it must have worked. Some of the best essays are: The Law of Leaky Abstractions Don't Let Architecture Astronauts Scare You Interviewing (The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing) Three Wrong Ideas From Computer Science How Microsoft Lost the API War Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt Top Five (Wrong) Reasons You Don't Have Testers It is definitely worth the roughly 20 bucks you'll spend on it.

This book is a collection of the best 45 articles from Joel Spolsky's blogs (www.joelonsoftware.com). He has a HUGE fan following amongst software developers and ilk. Why one loves reading Joel: 1. He presents a very human face; any article he writes is as if he is trying to talk directly to his reader. 2. Writes about very useful stuff that you dont get to read in textbooks (and other expensive, impressive books :-) 3. He condenses what he has to say into Lists (GMTA) Some of my favorite articles (and included in the book): 1. Law of leaky abstractions: A very insightful essay on the tradeoff between the piles of abstraction layers we have in todays development world and the inefficiencies they cause. 2. Getting Things Done When You're Only a Grunt: A practical, funny and very useful article on how be a good developer when you are a bit low on the company's totem pole. 3. Two Stories: A thought provoking article about Joel's contrasting experience working in Microsoft and Juno. (he was the project manager for an earlier version of MS Excel) All in all, whether you subsequently agree to his opinions or not, Joel is a must-read.