Monday, December 11, 2006
Peopleware
by Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister
This book is listed on Amazon as one of the better project management books to read. Since its the only one I've ever read I can't form an opinion in that regard. However, I did find it a very entertaining read.
The thought that there is a distinction between 'thinking' work and busy work, well, it really is a fundamentally new idea to me. I don't get anything done because I'm interrupted 4 times a day, even if only for ten to twenty minutes? Wow. I believe them though. Other things in this book really do feel like lessons I've already learned, and the hard way.
For instance, that your boss isn't interested in a quality product. He's interested in getting as much out the door as possible, which runs completely contrary to what any worker tends to want to do. And that, really, the boss kinda hears what they want to hear - that is, they'll ask you how to do X & Y & Z, and then based upon this analysis, ask you to do X & Y & B in the previous analysis. The shell trick!
Perhaps the best suggestion in the book was that, if you cannot change anything, its time to dust off the resume. Why is it that the most obvious lesson like this last one are just too hard to make it happen?
This book is listed on Amazon as one of the better project management books to read. Since its the only one I've ever read I can't form an opinion in that regard. However, I did find it a very entertaining read.
The thought that there is a distinction between 'thinking' work and busy work, well, it really is a fundamentally new idea to me. I don't get anything done because I'm interrupted 4 times a day, even if only for ten to twenty minutes? Wow. I believe them though. Other things in this book really do feel like lessons I've already learned, and the hard way.
For instance, that your boss isn't interested in a quality product. He's interested in getting as much out the door as possible, which runs completely contrary to what any worker tends to want to do. And that, really, the boss kinda hears what they want to hear - that is, they'll ask you how to do X & Y & Z, and then based upon this analysis, ask you to do X & Y & B in the previous analysis. The shell trick!
Perhaps the best suggestion in the book was that, if you cannot change anything, its time to dust off the resume. Why is it that the most obvious lesson like this last one are just too hard to make it happen?
Monday, December 04, 2006
Geek Love
by Katherine Dunn
Okay, I'm getting lazy. I read this about three weeks ago. This book, this book is a train wreck. I'm not saying it is depressing, only a little morbid and while reading it I could see that something bad was slowly chugging from down the valley. All the better cast are the deliberately mutated children of a circus troupe couple. And the worse half - or rather the worst child - an unhappy resentful legless and armless Arturo, "Wonder of the Sea!" Something like that, its a traveling circus, everybody has that kind of catchy title. You spend the entire book, chapter upon chapter, wondering when he's gonna blow up.
The first time that I heard about Geek Love, it was in the late 90s on NPR. It is to me one of those books that passes by on the periphery. If it weren't for my friend KRao I'd never have read it. Hmm, thanks?
Okay, I'm getting lazy. I read this about three weeks ago. This book, this book is a train wreck. I'm not saying it is depressing, only a little morbid and while reading it I could see that something bad was slowly chugging from down the valley. All the better cast are the deliberately mutated children of a circus troupe couple. And the worse half - or rather the worst child - an unhappy resentful legless and armless Arturo, "Wonder of the Sea!" Something like that, its a traveling circus, everybody has that kind of catchy title. You spend the entire book, chapter upon chapter, wondering when he's gonna blow up.
The first time that I heard about Geek Love, it was in the late 90s on NPR. It is to me one of those books that passes by on the periphery. If it weren't for my friend KRao I'd never have read it. Hmm, thanks?
