“If the world does not please you, you can change it.”
H.G Wells
Blogs I read
Saturday, December 6
Another interesting article from Joel Spolsky on craftmanship but the article on Good Software taking 10 years gained a lot more interest. With a graph of Lotus Notes user base against time showing how long it took to gather that user base. I also noticed his obsolete references to mozilla, my current browser, at which point the project was considered a joke as it had take 4 years and not produced anything, I remember one of my lecturers using it as a badly planned software project example. I deem Mozilla to be a great sucess( Market Share is 1-2% but it provides all I need ), its the best browser I've used, its plug in architecture adds extensibility it constantly being improved. But I guess I'm comparing apples and oranges here as Joel seems to be considering commercial software products and mozilla is free software.
Started reading Raw Spirit ( Amazon ) by Iain Banks I was recently given, looks like its going to be a good read, hes jammy getting a job like that. Interesting reading a book set in such current times (Iraq War just kicked off as he started writing it).
Recently read Brave New World ( Amazon ) , great book, one of those that makes you look differently at reality. Want to get Island to see what Aldous Huxley's idea of Utopia is. I like his comment on its inadequacy.
Another recent read of note is The Devil's Cup ( Amazon ) by Stewart Lee Allen. About the history of coffee and how it has influenced mankind. A enjoyable read, some interesting historical points, the style of the book is almost like the effects of coffee, high points which flow easily and some slow boring bits.