Dreaming in code

Dreaming In Code
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This book was given to me as a present last Christmas with "Beautiful Code". Usually books about software engineering as a process bore me, most texts treat the subject dryly and are more about advocating the author's own process or beliefs than providing any kind of real insight as to how software is built by companies today. So when I receieved this as a present (apparently it was recommended by Amazon with the text above), I shelved it adding it to the "when I get around to it" pile. I picked it up a couple weeks ago, and was shocked and pleasantly surprised.

Before I mention any more, I should point out one small detail. As a software developer, I often work in "Cathedral" style environments - those which work with a set team and work from the ground up on large and small projects. For all those of you in a similar position, you may find the first twenty pages a somewhat fan-boyish discussion of open source "bazzar" practices. Please don't throw the book in the corner, or condemn it to the flames, there is a point to the discussion. Simply get past that point and the rest will become much more meaningful. I do admit, that I myself had something of a false start because of this.

Dreaming In Code is unusal. Scott Rosenberg spent three years charting the developement of the Chandler project, an attempt at an information management application steming from an unusual viewpoint. OSAF (the foundation behind Chandler) attempted a mix of Cathedral and Bazzar developemnt, an open-source product with a directing body, not unlike the Mozilla foundation and Firefox. During research, Scott played a nearly invisible role, spending most of his time sat in the corner of meeting rooms, or listening into conversations, clearly careful not to disrupt the natural progress of the project.

In the write-up of his research, Scott skilfully blends elements of conversation between members of the team, with observation of the progress of the team, along with his understanding of software engineering practices and the psychology of programmers. He easily throws in arguments and quotes from the likes of Donald Knuth, Scott Guthrie, Eric Raymond, Richard Stallman and, unlike others, makes them relevant to the understanding of what is happening at OSAF. All this makes for a very interesting, dare I say gripping book which managed to open my eyes to the way software is developed now, where real-world problems occur and how we may overcome them in the future. It introduced me to new sources that I'll be following up on with genuine interest. This book is VERY REAL - and I can not emphasise this enough. Anyone with any involvement with the software industry will nod their heads in solem agreement with at least some of the book, and I challenge anyone to have not learnt something by the end of it.

Five stars - and very well deserved.