You might remember my beloved mantras: learning a new programming language and reading at least 6 relevant books every year. Following the 2007 edition, here’s the list of the 8 books I have enjoyed most in 2008, ordered by a purely subjective and absolutely irrational decreasing preference. I strongly recommend all of them!
Winner: Geekonomics: The [...]
Best books of 2008
January
6,
2009
Books · Code · Project Management
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The Dirty Little Secret of iPhone Development
December
23,
2008
This is happening right now, at a web agency near you.
The dot-com boom of the 90’s spawned a brand new generation of coders and software developers, including me, by the way. While before that time the term of “software developer” might have been reserved to system programmers fluent in C, COBOL, C++ or other languages, [...]
Code · Project Management · Quality · iPhone
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Dangers of Prototyping
August
15,
2008
Frederick P. Brooks Jr. has written about prototypes, saying that they are not only useful but strictly fundamental pieces of the overall software process, as in many other engineering activities. He gives the example of a pilot chemical plant, prepared to process 10′000 units per day instead of the 2 million units a day that [...]
Opinion · Papers · Project Management
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Saving a Failing Project
August
11,
2008
In 2006 I had the opportunity to work as a “project leader” into a small failing project. Three developers were working in an ad hoc basis, creating a software application for an important client (a government office in Lausanne), without any kind of detailed formal specification, without any kind of design documentation, and with strong [...]
Papers · Project Management · Quality · Software
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Adding Manpower
August
8,
2008
Published in 1975, “The Mythical Man-Month” is considered an all-time classic in the software engineering field. The book author, Frederick P. Brooks Jr., used his experience as the project manager of the IBM System/360 and its software, the Operating System/360, to explain a common set of problem patterns, applicable to other software projects as well.
One [...]
Architecture · Books · Papers · Project Management · Software
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Certification
August
5,
2008
While several other professions have a long, established and standard procedure of certification, the title “software engineer” is applied to both self-made developers, turned into experts of some technique, or to people with PhD degrees, and a long history of both academic and professional achievements.
When in some situations it is not legally possible to use [...]
Papers · Project Management · Quality · Software
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On the Need of Minimalist Polyglots
May
12,
2008
Many companies, at some point of their history, ask themselves a simple question: what programming language should I use? The answer to this question is tricky, and has big, big consequences, for every single line of code of your future products will be written, read and suffered by it. This single choice defines the level [...]
Code · Opinion · Project Management · Quality · Software
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Programmers are draftsmen
February
10,
2008
Interaction08: IxD’s in Savannah; Alan Cooper:
Programmers are draftsmen. However, they are different than pre-industrial workers. They are self-directed and know better than managers what to do. They respect intelligence, not authority. You can’t tell them what to do, you can only coerce them. Their satisfaction comes from the quality of their work. Unlike pre-industrial craftsmen, [...]
Act Now · Project Management
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The Truth Be Told
January
22,
2008
Reg describes 99% of all available programming jobs with incredible sincerity:
You do a clerk’s job, you settle for a clerk’s working conditions and wages, but you take solace in the thought that you are somehow more than a clerk, because you have a university degree and the dental technician who cleans your teeth doesn’t.
Only everyone [...]
Opinion · Project Management
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Total Quality Management and Software
December
18,
2007
Introduction
Total Quality Management is one of the founding pillars of modern mass-production economy, of which the software industry is by far the youngest (and most rebel) child. This article will provide a short discussion on some TQM principles and about their applicability to software projects.
Papers · Project Management · Quality · Software
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