The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky

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Apress, Nov 30, 2006 - Computers - 328 pages

Frustrated by the lack of well-written essays on software engineering, Joel Spolsky (of www.joelonsoftware.com fame) has put together a collection of his favorite writings on the topic.

With a nod to both the serious and funny sides of technical writing, The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky is an entertaining read and a guide to the technical writing literati.

The Best Software Writing I contains writings from:

  • Ken Arnold
  • Leon Bambrick
  • Michael Bean
  • Rory Blyth
  • Adam Bosworth
  • danah boyd
  • Raymond Chen
  • Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi
  • Cory Doctorow
  • ea_spouse
  • Bruce Eckel
  • Paul Ford
  • Paul Graham
  • John Gruber
  • Gregor Hohpe
  • Ron Jeffries
  • Eric Johnson
  • Eric Lippert
  • Michael Lopp
  • Larry Osterman
  • Mary Poppendieck
  • Rick Schaut
  • Aaron Swartz
  • Clay Shirky
  • Eric Sink
  • why the lucky stiff
 

Contents

Rory Blyth Excel as a Database
17
danah boyd Autistic Social Software
35
Raymond Chen Why Not Just Block the Apps That
46
The Human Story
59
Bruce Eckel Strong Typing vs Strong Testing 67
66
Paul Ford Processing Processing
79
Paul Graham Great Hackers 95
94
John Gruber The Location Field Is the
111
Larry Osterman Larrys Rules of Software
150
Mary Poppendieck Team Compensation
157
Rick Schaut Mac Word 6 0
171
Clay Shirky A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy
183
Flaming and
210
Eric Sink Closing the Gap Part 1
223
Eric Sink Closing the Gap Part 2 233
232
Eric Sink Hazards of Hiring
247

Gregor Hohpe Starbucks Does Not Use TwoPhase
118
Ron Jeffries Passion
125
Eric Lippert How Many Microsoft Employees Does
135
Aaron Swartz PowerPoint Remix
261
Index
293
Copyright

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Page xii - Dean of the School of Information Management and Systems at the University of California at Berkeley.
Page xiii - EFF's interests at various standards bodies and consortia, and at the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization. Doctorow is also a prolific writer who appears on the mastheads at Wired, Make, and Popular Science magazines, and whose science fiction novels have won the Campbell, Sunburst, and Locus Awards. His novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is a finalist for this year's Nebula Award. He is the coeditor of the popular weblog Boing Boing (boingboing.net). Born in Canada, he...

About the author (2006)

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.

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