Ancient Scrolls of Wisdom

In my previous post I mentioned Robert Glass's book Software Conflict 2.0 which is a reprint of a 1990 book. I gave one example of the thoughts in this book that are still relevant today.

It seem odd that a 16-years old book contains relevant information for building computer systems today. Nevertheless looking at my bookshelf I see quite a few other books (some of which are older) which contain essential information and brilliant ideas that are still very relevant today. Here are just a few examples:

• Peopleware Second Edition by Tom Demarco and Timothy Lister (Second edition 1999, original 1987). Development should be centered on people and not on methods

• The Mythical Man-Month: 20th Anniversary Edition by Fred Brooks (20th anniversary edition 1995, original 1974). "No silver bullet" don't just add people to a late project it will only slow it down and many more.

• Code Complete by Steve McConnell (Second Edition 2004, original 1993). A great book on coding.
  
  
• An Introduction to General Systems Thinking (Silver Anniversary Edition) by Gerald M. Weinberg (silver Anniversary Edition 2001, original 1975). Observations on thinking processes
  
  
• About Face and About Face 2.0 (2.0 Edition 2003, original 1995). UI mistakes and guidance, the second edition also details a scenario based approach to user experience design.
  

I'm not the only one to notice this. I recently saw a post by Rob Keefer at his pomiet blog that notes that the idea of TDD was mentioned 35 years ago in Gerald Weinberg's Psychology of Computer Programming.

With so much good advice lying around for years (11-40+) and the fact that only about 30% of the projects are successful (on-time;on budget; on scope) I think one question we should all ask ourselves is -- don't we ever learn?

Posted by Arnon Rotem-Gal-Oz at 06:26 AM  Permalink