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.

posted by 12345 3:58 PM