Listen up, my Entreprenuer Friends. Yes, you know who you are. Joel has some important things to say to you about The Development Abstraction Layer. Some of you have probably read it already, even.
Which reminds me… About a year ago Mark asked me, “What are your top 10 books for programmers?” I hummed and hawed about that for a bit, drafted a blog post in my head, thought a bit about the question, drafted another blog post in my head, thought about just firing back another question… and never got round to actually taking any of it outside of my head.
Several months ago, randomly — okay, not randomly, via some long-lost blog post — I came across Joel’s management training program reading list. This had a few good, recognisable titles in, so I considered sending a link to Mark… and never got round to it.
Now, the whole point of this ramble is that while I was looking up the address for the link above, I came across Joel’s Programmer’s Bookshelf. This has books I’ve read and respect, books on my to-buy list, and books I think will be turning up there quite soon. It even has K&R, so Mark will be happy. Job done. Sorry about the wait.
Tags: programming
Wow, there is an intersection of 3 books (K&R, Design of Everyday Things and Mythical Man Month), which happens to be the only 3 that I have read from his list. If I were non a mathematician (i.e. something scummy like a physicist or biologist or, worse, human) then I might consider that significant.
WRT the Development Abstraction Layer, I disagree for tiny start-ups (under 10 people) his assertion is just not practical, but it is a nice idea to aim for!
What I find most interesting is the concept of why small programmer-started (for-profit) companies can fail — because programmers think that all that is required is good software. This assumption is because of the DAL. Yes, it’s unfeasable for a tiny start-up company; the important thing is not to ignore the DAL activities like product production and support. I would probably have made that mistake, in part or in whole.
Also, I’m always interested in ideas concerning what management should actually do. In this case, Joel argues that management should be about letting programmers do their job. This echos exactly what Brooks says in The Mythical Man Month.