Mar 8, 2008 Rails

Never has Rails Trac been more entertaining than this. The change history is just too funny;-)
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Mar 2, 2008 Read Aircraft

Vulcan 607 is the story of the incredible raid on Stanley airfield by the RAF's aging V-Force that signaled the start of the 'shooting war' with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. This was Operation Black Buck.

Rowland White does a very good job of telling the story in immense detail, giving equal weight to the technicalities and personalities involved.

It's a rollicking read, especially if you enjoy reading the real stories behind military history. And the point is well made: considering the age of the Vulcan bombers and supporting Victor air-air tankers, the distances involved it is amazing that Vulcan 607 managed to take out the Stanley runway on the first flight. To put the single Vulcan 607 on target, it took: 1 Nimrod, 2 Vulcans, 14 Victors, 40 take-offs and landings, 42 1000lb bombs, 90 aircrew.
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Feb 29, 2008 Laugh

Organised by Improv EveryWhere
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Feb 25, 2008 TechRead Read

Scott Rosenberg's Dreaming in Code is the first book in a while that I have immediately wanted to go out and buy a few extra copies to give to friends. They would just so get it as a reflection on their current jobs!

The title Dreaming In Code is a bit misleading. At first I thought it was about coding practices - extreme flow state leading to fantasy debugging sessions in your sleep (been there!). But its not.

It's fascinating story following Mitch [Lotus 1-2-3] Kapor's quest to build a revolutionary PIM - Chandler - and the organisation he created to do it - OSAF.

At times, clearly a mild-to-massively disfunctional undertaking, but Rosenberg's reflective and honest reporting presents the situation in all its shades. Life is complex. It's not always so easy to 'pin the blame' for a project failure. Sometimes its not even so easy to tell if the project has failed, which is true for Chandler since it is still running!

What makes Rosenberg's book so engaging is that there are multiple layers to the story that speak to different interests.

On the one hand this is a ripping yarn about a high-risk startup. On another level the book reflects on contemporary management and software development practices. But its also the personal story of the very successful Mitch Kapor potentially facing the biggest failure of his career.

Overall, this makes for a compelling read for anyone in the business of software development.

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