The Best Software Writing I (eBook)

Joel Spolsky is a globally recognized expert on the software development process. His web site Joel on Software (JoelonSoftware.com) is popular with software developers around the world and has been translated into over 30 languages. As the founder of Fog Creek Software in New York City, he created FogBugz, a popular project management system for software teams. Joel has worked at Microsoft, where he designed Visual Basic for Applications as a member of the Excel team, and at Juno Online Services, developing an Internet client used by millions. He has written two books: User Interface Design for Programmers (Apress, 2001) and Joel on Software (Apress, 2004). Joel holds a bachelor's of science degree in computer science from Yale University. Before college, he served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a paratrooper, and he was one of the founders of Kibbutz Hanaton.

CONTENTS 6
ABOUT THE EDITOR 8
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 10
INTRODUCTION 16
STYLE IS SUBSTANCE --- Ken Arnold 20
AWARD FOR THE SILLIEST USER INTERFACE: WINDOWS SEARCH --- Leon Bambrick 26
So You’d Like to Search for Something! 27
THE PITFALLS OF OUTSOURCING PROGRAMMERS --- Michael Bean 28
Why Some Software Companies Confuse the Box with the Chocolates 31
Design and Assembly Are Different 32
EXCEL AS A DATABASE --- Rory Blyth 36
ICSOC04 TALK --- Adam Bosworth 42
AUTISTIC SOCIAL SOFTWARE --- Danah Boyd 54
Sociable Media, Sci-Fi, and Mental Illness 55
Autism and Attention Deficit Disorder 57
Socially Inept Computers 58
Friendster’s Success 60
Situating Technology in Practice 62
WHY NOT JUST BLOCK THE APPS THAT RELY ON UNDOCUMENTED BEHAVIOR? --- Raymond Chen 66
KICKING THE LLAMA --- Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi 70
SAVE CANADA’S INTERNET FROM WIPO --- Cory Doctorow 72
EA: THE HUMAN STORY --- ea_spouse 78
STRONG TYPING VS. STRONG TESTING --- Bruce Eckel 86
If it’s not tested, it’s broken. 94
Strong testing, not strong typing. 95
PROCESSING PROCESSING --- Paul Ford 98
GREAT HACKERS --- Paul Graham 114
Edisons 115
More than Money 116
The Final Frontier 119
Interesting 120
Nasty Little Problems 122
Clumping 123
Recognition 125
Cultivation 126
THE LOCATION FIELD IS THE NEW COMMAND LINE --- John Gruber 130
Who Loses As Web Apps Win? 134
STARBUCKS DOES NOT USE TWO-PHASE COMMIT --- Gregor Hohpe 138
Hotto Cocoa o Kudasai 139
Correlation 140
Exception Handling 140
Conversations 142
Real Life Architecture 143
PASSION --- Ron Jeffries 144
Grampa Speaks 145
Born for Passion 146
C++—THE FORGOTTEN TROJAN HORSE --- Eric Johnson 148
HOW MANY MICROSOFT EMPLOYEES DOES IT TAKE TO CHANGE A LIGHTBULB? --- Eric Lippert 154
WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU’RE SCREWED --- Michael “Rands” Lopp 158
5 Scenarios for High-Velocity Engineering Managers 158
#1) I’m Missing a Document and People Are Yelling at Me 160
#2) A Significant Development Tool Does Not Exist on My Team 162
#3) I Can’t Stand My Product/Program Manager or They Plain Don’t Exist 163
#4) My Product Is Nowhere Near Done 164
#5) My Company/Job Sucks or Is About to Suck 166
LARRY’S RULES OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING #2: MEASURING TESTERS BY TEST METRICS DOESN’T --- Larry Osterman 170
TEAM COMPENSATION --- Mary Poppendieck 176
The Morning After 177
The Aftershocks 178
Dysfunction #1: Competition 179
Dysfunction #2: The Perception of Unfairness 180
Dysfunction #3: The Perception of Impossibility 180
Dysfunction #4: Suboptimization 181
Dysfunction #5: Destroying Intrinsic Motivation 182
One Week Later 182
Guideline #1: Make Sure the Promotion System Is Unassailable 184
Guideline #2: De-emphasize the Merit Pay System 185
Guideline #3: Tie Profit Sharing to Economic Drivers 186
Guideline # 4: Reward Based on Span of Influence, Not Span of Control 187
Guideline #5: Find Better Motivators than Money 188
Six Months Later 188
MAC WORD 6.0 --- Rick Schaut 190
Mac Word 5 and Pyramid 192
Exit Jeff Raikes, Enter Chris Peters 193
Technical Hurdles 194
Technical Achievement 196
Learning the Meaning of “Mac-Like” 198
A GROUP IS ITS OWN WORST ENEMY --- Clay Shirky 202
Part One: How Is a Group Its Own Worst Enemy? 206
Part Two: Why Now? 213
Part Three: What Can We Take for Granted? 218
Three Things to Accept 219
Four Things to Design For 222
Conclusion 227
GROUP AS USER: FLAMING AND THE DESIGN OF SOCIAL SOFTWARE --- Clay Shirky 230
Learning from Flame Wars 231
Netiquette and Kill Files 233
The Tragedy of the Conversational Commons 234
Weblog and Wiki Responses 235
Reviving Old Tools 236
Novel Operations on Social Facts 237
Rapid, Iterative Experimentation 239
CLOSING THE GAP, PART 1 --- Eric Sink 242
Proactive Sales 243
#ifdef apology 244
#endif 244
Working with a Sales Guy 245
Characteristics of a Sales Guy 245
One More Mandatory Trait for a Sales Guy 247
Reasons to Have a Sales Guy 248
Reason #1: Nobody Really Wants Your Product 248
Reason #2: Your Product Is Very Expensive 248
Reason #3: Your Product Is No Longer Being Improved 249
The “No Sales Guy” Approach 249
The Bottom Line 250
CLOSING THE GAP, PART 2 --- Eric Sink 251
Responsive Sales 252
1. Make Sure Customers Know About Your Product 253
Be Careful with Advertising 253
Try a Tradeshow 254
Develop “in the Open” 254
2. Make Sure Your Product Is Something Customers Want 255
Choose Your Position 255
Choose Your Competition 255
Develop “in the Open” 256
3. Make Sure They Can Afford Your Product 256
Further Reading 257
4. Offer a Full-Featured Demo Download 258
Make the Download Easy to Find 259
Make the Download Full-Featured 259
Polish Your Installer 259
Let the Customer Remain Anonymous 259
5. Answer the Customers’ Questions 259
6. Provide a Place for Community 260
7. Make It Easy to Buy Over the Web 261
Don’t Make Customers Log In 261
You Don’t Need a Shopping Cart 262
Give Customers the Product Right Away 262
But We Can’t Do It This Way! 263
We’re Not Perfect 263
HAZARDS OF HIRING --- Eric Sink 264
1. Hire After the Need, Not Before 265
2. Realize That Hiring Is All About Probabilities 266
3. Know the Law 267
4. Get a Variety of Opinions 268
Hiring Programmers: The Usual Advice 269
Look for Self-Awareness 270
Hire Developers, Not Programmers 271
Education Is Good 272
But Too Much Education Is a Yellow Light 273
Look at the Code 274
The Very Best 276
POWERPOINT REMIX --- Aaron Swartz 279
A QUICK (AND HOPEFULLY PAINLESS) RIDE THROUGH RUBY (WITH CARTOON FOXES) --- why the lucky stiff 285
Language and I Mean Language 287
The Parts of Speech 291
Variables 292
Numbers 293
Strings 293
Symbols 294
Constants 294
Methods 295
Method Arguments 296
Class Methods 296
Global Variables 297
Instance Variables 297
Class Variables 298
Blocks 298
Block Arguments 299
Ranges 300
Arrays 300
Hashes 301
Regular Expressions 302
Operators 302
Keywords 303
If I Haven’t Treated You Like a Child Enough Already 304
An Example to Help You Grow Up 306
And So, the Quick Trip Came to an Eased, Cushioned Halt 308
INDEX 311
COLOPHON 324