- Paperback: 235 pages
- Publisher: Dorset House Publishing (1 Dec 1995)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 093263334X
- ISBN-13: 978-0932633347
- Product Dimensions: 22.4 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,248,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Known for his ability to find provocative answers to the most puzzling questions, Tom DeMarco explores a wide range of issues in twenty-four masterful essays. The offerings range from the wise to the kooky -- in fact, many of them defy categorization. But all are marked by the author's eye-opening perspectives on topics that demand your professional attention. Drawing together several essays published in such journals as IEEE Software and American Programmer, plus ten all-new papers never seen beyond his circle of colleagues, Tom DeMarco tackles a multitude of tough subjects and wrestles fresh insight out of them. Here's a compact, compelling edition of this acclaimed consultant's views on software engineering. Subjects include management-aided engineering, documentation, desktop video, productivity, software factories, teams, measurement, icons, and more! Essays Include * Why Does Software Cost So Much? * Mad About Measurement * Software Productivity: The Covert Agenda * The Choir and the Team * Management-Aided Software Engineering (with Sheila Brady of Apple Computer) * Lean and Mean * Software Development: State of the Art vs. State of the Practice (with Tim Lister) * Twenty Years of Software Engineering: Looking Forward, Looking Back * "If We Did Only One Thing to Improve . . ." -- plus fifteen more!
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
The book is short, funny and to the point. Joel goes through how to attract and retain the best talent in development. There is something here that all managers must know before hiring developers... For top management the concept of a factory does not hold. Explained once again by Joel.
Format:Paperback
Some of the essays are great. Some don't even seem pertinent. For example, there is a discussion about A/V equipment that, while humorous, felt out of place. On the whole, there was a lot of thought provoking material, however.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
12 reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Insightful, funny, and very readable
17 Jan 2001
Format:Paperback
The software industry has been cranking out books at a record pace. Any self respecting software professional reads anywhere from a handful to a pile each year. But, if an engineer could get upper management to read one book so they could better understand the engineer's world, which book would it be? This one comes to mind.
Why does software cost so much? DeMarco bristles at the question. Compared to what?! "[its] not a question at all; it's an assertion." In a series of essays DeMarco and others make observations that ring true. Here's one gem: "I suspect the typical software engineer doesn't work overtime to make the schedule, but in order not to feel so bad about not making it."
All of the essays are brief and to the point. The book was first published in 1995 and several of the essays are works published earlier. A few that mention particular technologies, languages, or management fads are showing signs of age. The essays that concentrate on the sociology of programming still hit home. And why not? Tools and technologies evolve quickly but people and their habits don't.
DeMarco's casual and fluid writing style make each of the essays easy to read but be careful not to confuse "easy to read" with "trivial." There is plenty here to make an engineer think and to give a CEO some insight into the complex and sometimes baffling world of software.
Why does software cost so much? DeMarco bristles at the question. Compared to what?! "[its] not a question at all; it's an assertion." In a series of essays DeMarco and others make observations that ring true. Here's one gem: "I suspect the typical software engineer doesn't work overtime to make the schedule, but in order not to feel so bad about not making it."
All of the essays are brief and to the point. The book was first published in 1995 and several of the essays are works published earlier. A few that mention particular technologies, languages, or management fads are showing signs of age. The essays that concentrate on the sociology of programming still hit home. And why not? Tools and technologies evolve quickly but people and their habits don't.
DeMarco's casual and fluid writing style make each of the essays easy to read but be careful not to confuse "easy to read" with "trivial." There is plenty here to make an engineer think and to give a CEO some insight into the complex and sometimes baffling world of software.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Unspoken truths are still truths
4 Jan 2000
Format:Paperback
It seems that in every field of human endeavor, there are things that are true, but for whatever reason are unspoken and ignored. The reasons for this are many, but a partial list includes: fear of failure, fear of losing face, time pressures, rigid rules and tradition. Software development is no different and Tom DeMarco is a speaker of the truth. In this collection of marvelous essays, he points out many of the well-known but neglected principles that generate problems in software projects.
The leading essay points out that software creation is hard and we demand a great deal from our software. So much of our societal infrastructure is controlled by software and most of it built in a relatively short time. Furthermore, there is no legacy of experience in building software that there is for building hard infrastructure items such bridges and roads. We are still conducting what is essentially on the job training.
Another simple, significant, yet overlooked point is that the sociology of a project is more important than the technology. The efficiency of a programmer during any individual day is often influenced more by the fight with a boyfriend or girlfriend than it is by having the latest tools. Software is built by the effective working of the human brains and the tools just make the output easier to capture.
Once again, DeMarco is at his best, namely when he is writing more about sociology and psychology than about the technical aspects of computing. This book should be mandatory reading for anyone in the process of building a development team.
The leading essay points out that software creation is hard and we demand a great deal from our software. So much of our societal infrastructure is controlled by software and most of it built in a relatively short time. Furthermore, there is no legacy of experience in building software that there is for building hard infrastructure items such bridges and roads. We are still conducting what is essentially on the job training.
Another simple, significant, yet overlooked point is that the sociology of a project is more important than the technology. The efficiency of a programmer during any individual day is often influenced more by the fight with a boyfriend or girlfriend than it is by having the latest tools. Software is built by the effective working of the human brains and the tools just make the output easier to capture.
Once again, DeMarco is at his best, namely when he is writing more about sociology and psychology than about the technical aspects of computing. This book should be mandatory reading for anyone in the process of building a development team.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Very thought provoking essays on Software Engineering
13 July 1998
Format:Paperback
Tom DeMarco has to be one of the most clear and lucid writers in software engineering. In this book he covers a wide range of material, all with the same light, easy to read style. Almost every essay raises questions or provides insight that I had not considered before. DeMarco has definitely changed my outlook (or at least made me think more critically) on many areas of my career in software.
The only reason I didn't give this book five stars was that some of the essays seem to have been thrown in as an afterthought to make the book thicker. A few didn't really flow together with the rest of the book.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
