Reading Dreaming in Code
I started reading my way through Scott Rosenberg’s book Dreaming in Code, which is the story of a software team’s journey to build a personal information manager to challenge Microsoft’s Outlook. I’ll give my full impression of the book once I finish, but I did want to mention that the book is well-written and targetted at the non-programmer. I may tell my non-programmer friends they ought to read it if they are interested in better understanding my job.
I’m only three chapters into the book, but it’s interesting enough. Lots of anecdotes to the wisdom of Fred Brooks’ Mythical Man Month, of which I am a fan. I’m already seeing some red flags early on in the project’s development – big scope, little incremental goal setting, smart people but possibly a lack of strong leadership. But then, I’m only a few chapters in.
Out of curiosity I went to the Dreaming in Code website, which led me to the Chandler website, only to find that it still hasn’t reached 1.0 status 6-7 years after it started. It looks like they have a lot of the same team intact, although Mitch Kapor is listed as an alumni of the project. In today’s world six years for this style project is an eternity. I look forward to learning about the rest of the story.
Filed under: Books
