Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson has been on Amazon’s top ten list for a couple months now and for good reason, it’s captivating, easy to read, engaging, and fun. However, I was disappointed with the lack of references. If the authors had included references to texts that back up many of their opinions (books like the Mythical Man-Month, Peopleware, etc…) then Rework could have more impact on corporate decision makers. Unfortunately, without the external references this book is easily passed of as highly opinionated and subjective.

The ‘morning-after syndrome’ as described by Uncle Bob (Robert C. Martin):

Have you ever worked all day, gotten some stuff working, and then gone home, only to arrive the next morning to find that your stuff no longer works? Why doesn’t it work? Because somebody stayed later than you and changed something you depended on! I call this ‘the morning-after syndrome’. - Robert C. Martin, Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#

Bob makes the point that by writing tests we make our code more stable and brittle to change, which prevents our coworkers from making casual breaking changes. Sure-sure, brittle tests are frustrating when refactoring, but at the same time these brittle tests accentuate the importance that the code under test should not be modified. Core components that your system depends on should be stable and brittle.

Bob continues:

Many factors make a software component difficult to change: its size, complexity, clarity, and so on. But we are going to ignore all those factors and focus on something different. One sure way to make a software component difficult to change is to make lots of other software components [like tests] depend on it. A component with lots of incoming dependencies is very stable, because it requires a great deal of work to reconcile any changes with all the dependent components. - Robert C. Martin, Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#

I found Andy Hunt’s description of Sheep Dip Training funny:

A sheep dip is a large tank in which you dunk the unsuspecting sheep to clean them up and rid them of parasites. The sheep line up; you grab one and dunk it in the tank … It wears off, of course, so you have to dip them again.

Sheep dip training follows the same model. You lineup unsuspecting employees, dunk them in an intensive, three-to-five day event … and proclaim them to be Java developers, .NET developers, or what have you. It wears off, of course, so next year you need to have a “refresher” course - another dip.

Companies love standardized “sheep dip” training … There’s only one drawback. This naive approach doesn’t work … - Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt

Free to a good home: JavaScript: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan.

It’s rare for technical books to be held in such high esteem, but the numbers speak - this book has close to 200 five star ratings on Amazon, confirming that The Definitive Guide is still one of the seminal guides to the JavaScript language. Flanagan’s book is a must read for developers and designers alike. Along with JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford of course. I reviewed this book a while back, you can read my review.

The Details:

• Comment on this post
• Leave a valid email in the email comment field
• The winner will be chosen at random and notified through email on Oct 1st
• I cross my fingers hoping that you don’t live on the other side of the world (I pay for shipping)

Good Luck!

And the winner is Dan Carlson!

The title of Jeffrey Zeldman’s book (Designing with Web Standards) says it all - this book promoted accessible, usable, search engine friendly web design and development through the use of XHTML and CSS while debunking the myths surrounding web standards. Zeldman is a well recognized name among web developers and designers - he’s the the founder of A List Apart, and co-founder of The Web Standards Project (WaSP). His writing is entertaining, witty, easy to read, and insightful - it’s very much like the content we’re used to reading at A List Apart. It’s also fair to mention that this book has been edited by industy experts and influencial writers like Eric Myer. Any developer that works with the web should read this book along with JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford.

It’s also fair to mention that this book has been charged as being just another patterns book, and while I can see this perspective, some of the concepts do come across as being overly abstract without clear implementations (code) to reference, but this books is much more than another patterns book. As a developer you don’t want to overlook this book, it’s an insightful snapshot into the mind of an experienced developer. From my experience the concepts and patterns surrounding Domain Driven Design frequently crop up in Service Orientation, MVC/MVP structured Web Applications, Object Orientation, Test Driven Development, Model Driven Development, and other modern staticly typed best practices. If you do find yourself grasping for more concrete implementations then you’ll want to read Jimmy Nilsson’s Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET book too - Nilsson’s book provides many code examples while directly referencing Evan’s text.

I highly recommend this book, it’s a great reference to have alongside Steve McConnell’s Code Complete, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering by Robert Glass, and the Martin Fowler blessed books too.

A group of us reread this book as part of The Calgary Book Club. View my review on Amazon.

These books set the tone for my perspective in this new year.

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson) emphasizes that, as humans we rarely know what we're doing - our existence as a species on this earth is a tiny fraction of time, but we continue to kill ourselves while obliterating other species and our environment. This book was also a great reminder that the greatest innovators and inventors are individuals with a burning passion - not individuals with a laundry list of formal qualifications.

The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century (Thomas L. Friedman) argues that, we can't accept complacency in our jobs or careers - the world has changed and you'll be left behind. Bureaucracy on every level may save your job today, but this won't be the case in an increasingly global world. As individuals our careers and future are solely our responsibility - we should be versatilitsts, not specialists.

The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management (Art Kleiner, et el) demonstrate that, most corporations / business / organization don't really know what they're doing (MBA theory is based on the past, and not entirely relevant for the future). Many successful businesses have been run by heretics - people who understood the system around them, then push the limits of these systems to provide more value, innovate, and become successful. Also, that success is almost entirely dependent on people, teams, integrity, honesty, and the relationships that ensue.

The Last Lecture (by Randy Pausch, Jeffrey Zaslow), is a sober reminder that living life to the fullest and living a good life are what really matters. Also, that: “engineering isn't about perfect solutions; it's about doing your best with limited resources” - Randy Pausch.

Cheers to another great year as we continue to gaining broader perspectives, seek out a better quality of life, get out and do more things, meet new people, and cultivate existing relationships. :)

I found Art Kleiner’s concept of vernacular culture interesting in his book The Age of Heretics: A History of the Radical Thinkers Who Reinvented Corporate Management.

Vernacular as described by Kleiner:

Despite the power of corporate practice, something desperately desirable has been lost in everyday corporate life, and without it, corporations could not truly perform. This lost quality, unnoticed and yet desperately needed, was the vernacular spirit of everyday life …

there is no better word than vernacular for the quality of relationships and culture that dominated community life before the advent of the industrial age … 

Vernacular life was the way of life that still exists in these villages of our dreams … In a vernacular culture the best things in life are free, economic and personal life are mixed together … and every exchange of goods is not just an economic transaction but an expression of the community’s spirit …

the builders of industrial culture didn’t have to reject vernacular culture; they merely ignored it or destroyed it in passing, while the power of finance and operations, the power of the numbers culture, undermined the relationships that vernacular culture depended on.

There’s strong parallels to the vernacular culture, the Agile / Lean movement, open source, buying locally, the Toyota Way and an innate human need for community and contribution. Today, many of the institutes that have been built on industrial culture (GM, Ford) seem to be faltering, whereas those that have been built on vernacular culture (Toyota, Google) seem to be succeeding.

Through the book the author suggests that heretics are often responsible for transforming industrial cultured institutes to ones that embrace vernacular culture.

Kleiner describes a heretic as:

someone who sees a truth that contradicts the conventional wisdom of the institution to which he or she belongs and remains loyal to both entities - the institution and the new truth.

One of the concepts that is continual presented within this text is that conventional wisdom and institutions are often incorrect, as individuals we can change our situation, our work environment, and our world, but in order to make change we need to identify, verbalize, and seek out new ideas and approaches.

I don’t know how I was recommended this book, but I’m really enjoying it!

the obvious … is never seen until someone expresses it simply. - Kahlil Gibran

The preface of Object Oriented Software Construction literally introduced me to the three-step sequence:

the well-known three-step sequence of reactions that meets the introduction of a new methodological principle:

(1) “it’s trivial”;
(2) “it cannot work”;
(3) “that’s how I did it all along anyway”.

(The order may vary.) - Bertrand Meyer

Naturally people consider themselves smart, which sometimes translates into knowing everything, and these three reactions are probably a manifestation of thinking you’re overly enlightened. If we put ego aside - along with our natural predisposition for being lazy (trying to avoiding learning new things) - we often change our views altogether.

Looking back at my technological naivety: I was once wrongly convinced that client-side languages would never work and server-side languages / frameworks would dominate (until I really learned JavaScript), I had also mistakenly assumed that I was already doing TDD (until being introduced to the concept of Mocking), and I even thought that HTML table based design was the future (until I really learned CSS). With a little bit of knowledge and some experience I changed my views altogether.

Reflecting on these incorrect assumptions and decisions promotes growth - with every experience we grow. Which of my latest assumptions / reactions will change over time?

Robert Glass has given the software world many gifts during his 50 year career in software development. This book stands above his other contributions as his magnum opus. I cannot recommend it highly enough. - Steve McConnell

There’s no need for my personal review, but I will say that if Robert Glass had a blog this book would no doubt be his best of.

Interesting excerpts from Software Creativity 2.0:

When I began working in industry. I was appalled to find that nothing I had learned in graduate school bore the slightest relationship to what I was asked to do on the job. …

Practice often precedes and helps form theory …

The more a creative person knows about the subject of focus, the less the need for creativity …

In order to think originally, we must familiarize ourselves with the ideas of others

Notes about the Creative person’s traits:

They are especially observant …

They see things as others do, but also as others do not …

They are by constitution more vigorous and have available them an exceptional fund of psychic and physical energy …

They usually lead more complex lives, seeking tension …

The creative person is both more primitive and more cultured, more destructive and more constructive, crazier and saner, than the average person. …

Keep in mind I’ve omitted some of Robert’s earth shattering excerpts since I’ve read a couple of his other books (see this older post for details) - my chosen excerpts don’t do justice to the book. Read it yourself! :)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would like to give a copy away. You can read my review here.

Contest Rules:

• Comment on this post.
• Leave a valid email in the email comment field.
• The winner will be chosen at random and notified through email on Oct 1st.
• I pay for shipping.

Good Luck!

This contest has commenced, and the winner is Luke Maciak!

This summer I hope to finish up the following books:

• Windows PowerShell in Action - PowerShell is a shell scripting language for Windows. I’m a command line / keyboard junkie, and I’m hoping PowerShell can further automate some of my day to day tasks inside Windows.
• Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software - From what I’ve read so far, this book is great.
• Software Creativity 2.0 - I’m a Robert Glass Fan boy (I’ll read anything he writes). I’ve had this book on my must read list for a while now.
• Inside Windows Communication Foundation - I make use of WCF every day, and would like to learn more about the unknown nooks and crannies that lie within.
• The Ruby Programming Language - An amazing book (it even has illustrations). The Ruby language is fascinating, terse, and elegant, I’m curious to see how I can make use of Ruby in .NET since IronRuby has been released. This book also happens to be fun to read.
  
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street - I’m trying to brush up on how to make better investments. The author starts off by telling you that most people working in the trading realm are crooks…  :)

Books and reading are essential for personal and professional development. The more you read, the more you understand and the more resources you have to fall back on.

What books are you reading this summer? Do you have any recommendations?

This book’s size makes it approachable for all audiences, its style is terse and concise. This book has the potential to do for JavaScript, what Richie’s inspirational classic the C Programming Language did for the C language.

JavaScript is the programming language of the web (AJAX), and this book will guide you through the good parts of this often misunderstood language - while this book is an excellent reference, it is not intended to replace JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, you’ll do best to have both these books on hand.

If you enjoyed (or are considering) this book then you may want to learn more of what Douglas Crockford has to say, check out his great JavaScript video series on the YUI Theater.

I highly recommend this book. View my review on Amazon.

This book was required pre-reading for my latest Technical Editing task - I'm editing Mr. York's newest book. So in the spirit of spring, de-cluttering, and giving. I'd like to give this book away. This book is like new with a couple minor dings (from an airport fiasco), it is in full color (like all good design books should be), and it's free!

Contest Rules:

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• Leave a valid email in the email comment field.
• The winner will be chosen at random and notified through email on Canada Day (July 1st).
• I pay for shipping.

Good Luck!

The contest has ended and the winner is Devin Parrish!

Comments like “we recommend that…”, “because it makes no sense…”, “you must rely on a special method…”, “you must understand X,Y,Z to run complex client-side code without writing a single line of JavaScript” were discouraging. Many of the “whys” were left answered and the technical inner workings of the framework often trivialized. Don't get me wrong, writing a book is incredibly time consuming, but if you're an author, presenter or the like, and you don't fully understand something then admit it. Do some research, provide some links, or move on. Consistently making comments like these bring the integrity of the whole text into question.

The ASP.NET AJAX Framework itself is technically flawed, bloated, and almost entirely impractical. I was disappointed with the server-centric approach that both the book and ASP.NET AJAX Framework takes. I was disappointed that the book continually pushed JavaScript under the carpet as magic and at the end of the book I was pleased to see the promise of making “the JavaScript code disappear” never was  fulfilled. JavaScript is the very most important part of AJAX, without the 'J' in AJAX, we're left with nothing - just 'Asynchronous', 'And', heaps of more ugly 'XML'.

When reading this book, take the contents and the ASP.NET AJAX Framework with a grain of salt, if you're really serious about learning AJAX then read JavaScript: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan.

I typically only contribute positive reviews, but I don't agree with the majority of reviews found on Amazon and hope this review provides some objectivity. I commend the authors on their hard work, I'm probably being too harsh with this review - I know it's tough to write a book, and imagine they made many sacrifices as they worked towards tight deadlines.

View my review on Amazon.

When choosing a book I follow this heuristic approach:

• Ask experts in the field (friends, forums, newsgroups) for recommendations
• Ask these experts to differentiate between the high level books and the books that take a technical deep dive.
• Filter out (discard) the high level recommendations.
• Filter out (discard) all recommendations that contain the following keywords in their title:
• Cookbook
• Problem - Design - Solution
• Hacks
• Tips
• Learn X in 24 hours
• Look for recognizable authors.
• Cross reference these recommendations through Amazon's Reviews:
• Books with over 100 excellent ratings on Amazon are instant winners - the Amazon community is rarely misleading.
• Books that haven't received more than 50 ratings should be considered with skepticism - visit a local book store and skim through the text in question before making the purchase.

JavaScript is the assembly language of the internet - most of the current-generation web frameworks make heavy use of JavaScript, CSS, and AJAX. If you really want to understand how ASP.NET or Ruby on Rails really works, how AJAX works, how JavaScript libraries work. If itching to push the web browser envelope, to really innovate, then this book is a required read. In addition if you’re coming from a staticly type background like Java or .NET, then JavaScript (a functional programming language) will open your eyes to a different programming model. Once you grock the fundamentals of JavaScript you’ll never be able to look at classical languages (Java, C++, .NET, …) with a straight face again. I highly recommend this book to any web developer from any web framework camp.

View my review on Amazon.

I've read this book, re-read it, edited it, and would like to give it away - I was the Technical Editor. The books is like new and (did I mention) it's free!

Contest Rules:

• Updated! Just Leave a comment with a valid email address!

• Post a 500 x 200 pixel image of something you're working on in the comments of this post - this image could be code, web design, or anything work related.
• Include an optional description of your work
• The winner will be chosen April 1st May 1st, they'll be drawn at random, and will be notified through email.
• I pay for shipping.

* I've included a sample entry in the comments. If you're looking for a great free photo editing application then try Paint.net. If you're looking to host your image you might want to consider Flickr or Photobucket.

Good Luck!

The contest has ended, and the winner is….. Andrew Hinde. Nice!