Programming as If People Mattered: Friendly Programs, Software Engineering, and Other Noble Delusions

I first read this book around the same time that I read The Road Less Traveled, 25th Anniversary Edition : A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth. Both are books filled with anecdotes, basically slice-of-life books about their areas of expertise. Programming as if People Mattered gives a series of very specific stories about some software systems that the author worked closely with. The close-up view offered to the reader is (to me) invaluable. Plus, it has some great one-liners that will probably stick with you for a long time. Programmers (and all technologists) should occasionally take a step back from their work to get the larger picture. This book will help to do that.

Some of the reviews seem hung up on the "dated" quality of the examples. I think you need to look past this to see the underlying principles. For example, there is a chapter called "The quest for the perfect line editor". The example given is the change from line editors like ed to full screen editors like vi. The underlying principle is difficulty people have in accepting change. Or, the following quote "It may help to think of the user community as being like a preschool full of screaming three-year-olds. One doesn't have to rush to respond every time one of them cries a little bit, as crying is entirely natural for young children. But if some of all of the children begin to wail frequently, something is probably wrong and an investigation is warranted. If what they're all crying is "I want a cookie," that doesn't necessarily mean you should give them all cookies, but you might consider making them a healthy lunch to meet the underlying real need." Excellent advice, and a universal principle, from a chapter called "Listen to your users, but ignore what they say".

Inspiring. Guerrila tactics for programmers who want to care about people yet somehow still get paid to work. On the whole, politically incorrect and true, thus delightful. In places, a touch sour. On my web page at home, the most recent of the three great art-of-programming books I list.I liked one chapter so much that I typed out a softcopy myself by hand: a copy to read whenever I like. I mean Chapter 20 "The Ivory Tower". That chapter says ... We should reinvent the university experience of programmers to make the experience useful to the programmer. To become the first to teach programming well, let's try applying the approaches used to teach similar disciplines like architecture, or even anthropology, art, and drama.