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Books I recommend to my software engineering students

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Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#71

Post by downerending »

ggm wrote: post #59
downerending wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good summary. My years suggest that he wasn't nearly pessimistic enough.

You mean if you add 9 women you get a baby in 81 months?

I mean that in the limit, adding the n+c'th person isn't just useless, it's devastating. If the optimal (in terms of calendar date of completion) size for a project is (say) three people, it is entirely possible, if not almost certain, that putting 30 people on the project will push the expected completion date to infinity. In other words, the project will fail.

Now, you might say, "I will just bench those other 27 people" and have them play cards or something. In most organizations, though, you cannot do this. Instead, they must be seen to be useful somehow. And if you have 30 people with their hands in a three-person project, no matter how peripherally, failure is all but guaranteed.

I have seen this many times.

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#72

Post by gmassman »

Jtsummers wrote: post #32
pjmorris wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Becoming A Technical Leader', Gerald Weinberg

I probably ought to read this one. I got on a Weinberg reading kick after reading some recommendations here a few months before his death. The one I particularly liked was The Psychology of Computer Programming . While dated in many ways (like MMM ), it has a lot of interesting ideas and discussion about the structure and behavior of people and teams (regardless of discipline, though he was writing about programmers)…

Isn't that why most people use Docker nowadays?

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#73

Post by jdale27 »

ken wrote: post #33

It’s interesting to see “The Mythical Man-Month” in a list like this, since I’ve never once seen any team implement what it suggests. Is it meant only as a cautionary tale?

What I took away from MMM was less concrete, actionable suggestions you can implement, and more "things to watch out for" in the development process. Things like the second system effect, and Brooks' Law (adding people to a late project makes it later) are red flags. You can't always avoid them (management will add warm bodies in desperation, you probably can't convince them otherwise). But at least when you see second system effect happening you can often try to mitigate it by design/architecture decisions.

I would also say the lessons around keeping teams small have been taken to heart in industry somewhat, e.g. in the notion of the two-pizza team at Amazon.

That said, some of Brooks' suggestions, such as the "surgical team" concept, are more products of their era and haven't aged well.

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#74

Post by crease »

scotch_drinker wrote: post #35

Blech. Nothing here that's obscure or likely to alter the path of some one's knowledge. No philosophy, no history, and the list includes Gladwell. Actually, the inclusion of Gladwell probably distinctly colors my thinking on the subject. Maybe "How to read a book" or "The Alchemist" or I don't know, something that's not just so totally typical.

I'm genuinely curious why Gladwell is a negative control. The name sounds familiar but I don't know much about him

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#75

Post by no-s »

dpeck wrote: post #49
symplee wrote: post #12

I bought my boss two copies of The Mythical Man-Month so he could read it twice as fast.

I've often had thoughts of opening up a little web shop that anonymously shipped copies of The Mythical Man-Month in bulk.

I used to leave copies of Mythical Man Month on the seats of the MUNI in SF during the DotCom era. Also PeopleWare. Actually Patti Dunn gave me a few hundred extra copies of PeopleWare from some Barclays event I accidentally attended and I couldn't conveniently get them home on my bike, so that was a one-time event.

I so enjoyed the pragmatism of Crockford's "Javascript: the good parts" that I gave it away for a while too.

Sometimes I would print out great tracts like "big ball of mud" and leave them at appropriate places in SF.

Eventually I realized I was either preaching to the converted or preaching to the wilderness. So I stopped. But you've inspired me to reconsider anonymous viral software evangelism, at least for a brief moment.

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#76

Post by bryanrasmussen »

rfrey wrote: post #47
crimsonalucard wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand why people worship this book. Contrary opinion here but I think this book is actually below average. I think it's good that it introduces the overall concept of Design patterns, but the book itself isn't really about the general concept of Design patterns. The book is focused on OOP techniques and tricks. It makes the assumption that OOP is the most general way to modularize things and think…

The book didn't introduce people to design patterns, it invented the concept within the discipline of software programming. Perhaps one needs to have been in industry before and after this book to appreciate how it introduced a common vocabulary, a mechanism for documenting and sharing experience, and a framework for thinking about common problems.

The first expression of a concept is not necessarily the best or most useful expression. As such the book can be the first expression of the concept of Design Patterns and be worthless as a lasting text.

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#77

Post by ardy42 »

crease wrote: post #74
scotch_drinker wrote: post #35

Blech. Nothing here that's obscure or likely to alter the path of some one's knowledge. No philosophy, no history, and the list includes Gladwell. Actually, the inclusion of Gladwell probably distinctly colors my thinking on the subject. Maybe "How to read a book" or "The Alchemist" or I don't know, something that's not just so totally typical.

I'm genuinely curious why Gladwell is a negative control. The name sounds familiar but I don't know much about him

> I'm genuinely curious why Gladwell is a negative control. The name sounds familiar but I don't know much about him

He's written a lot of bestselling pop social science books. IIRC, he's a good storyteller, but is criticized for cherry-picking stuff to create the impression that you've just learned something profound and counter-intuitive when maybe you actually haven't.

Here's a review of one that makes that point: https://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/malcolm-gladwell-backla...

Disclaimer, I actually enjoy his books.

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#78

Post by dpeck »

no-s wrote: post #75
dpeck wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've often had thoughts of opening up a little web shop that anonymously shipped copies of The Mythical Man-Month in bulk.

I used to leave copies of Mythical Man Month on the seats of the MUNI in SF during the DotCom era. Also PeopleWare. Actually Patti Dunn gave me a few hundred extra copies of PeopleWare from some Barclays event I accidentally attended and I couldn't conveniently get them home on my bike, so that was a one-time event. I so enjoyed the pragmatism of Crockford's "Javascript: the good parts" that I gave it away for a whil…

| But you've inspired me to reconsider anonymous viral software evangelism, at least for a brief moment.

That is likely the best complement I've gotten this week.

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#79

Post by kohtatsu »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #4

I've advocated for a "canon" of books for software engineering and computer science that could be taught in school. The canon would accomplish several goals: it'd inform students about the less technical but profoundly important ideas within CS (Brooks' No Silver Bullet, The 10x cost incurred when moving from stage to stage in waterfall, how to treat and manage failure, etc.), it'd teach students how to think about p…

I'd like to plug Responsive Communication.

It's available entirely online here http://www.ankn.uaf.edu/curriculum/AxeHandleAcademy/rc/50pat...

It was written in 1986 by the linguist Ron Scollon and his wife Suzie.

I found a paper copy on a free-book shelf outside a thrift store, and consider myself blessed to have stumbled upon it.

Re: Books I recommend to my software engineering students

#80

Post by [deleted] »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #4

I've advocated for a "canon" of books for software engineering and computer science that could be taught in school. The canon would accomplish several goals: it'd inform students about the less technical but profoundly important ideas within CS (Brooks' No Silver Bullet, The 10x cost incurred when moving from stage to stage in waterfall, how to treat and manage failure, etc.), it'd teach students how to think about p…

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