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This book is a really good collection of his blogs over the last few years. While you could read the originals here:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/Archive.htmlyou have to filter them out, and you can’t read them in the bath or on the crapper like you can with a book. Unless you have a wireless laptop.
He has some good thoughts about the software industry, Microsoft, running a tech business, interviewing techies, etc. While that may sound boring, it’s good entertainment and even if you don’t agree with all he says it always makes you think.
Here’s a couple of my picks:
Fire and MotionThere’s many more, and I probably haven’t picked out the funny ones.
May be interesting for people in the industry I guess…. but with similies of this quality..
“And hard drive space is down to $0.0071 per megabyte and still plummeting like a sheep learning to fly by jumping out of a tree.”
(from the bloatware link)I dont think he will be winning any prizes for literary merit 🙂
Like most blog writers… they publish their stuff on the web because no reputable print publisher would accept them…. though he has turned the tables it seems in being so succesful as a blogger that he has gained the critical mass to get print published after all despite lack of ability.
A bit harsh there doc. Damning a guy’s entire writing because of one flippant simile. Even Douglas Adams (RIP) did not hit the mark every time.
I disagree with your point on most blog writers. They publish their stuff on the web because they can, not because they can’t get a print publisher to accept them. Most – self included – write to get something out there and because it is easy to do so, and can have a dynamic content that published sources just cannot hope to replicate. I can also write about something that is of relevence in the here and now, and not have to wait ages to get it in WH Smiths. I don’t have the desire to get in print – and although I have in the past in technical publications (conferences etc), that’s been a side effect rather than an aim. Which is just as well, because my writing style truly is crap!
Sure, Joel’s stuff ain’t Shakespeare, but it is written in a very readable, occasionally witty style that is informative too.
Fair enough m8 – I’m not saying blogging is useless…. just that people have to be aware that with the freedom of expression that the net brings come the freedom to spout a pile of crap which has the danger of being accepted as being of more worth than it really is. i.e. sometimes having an editor filtering the stuff you produce can be a useful process.
Whats you blog addy?
I think blogging’s great. A couple of good ones I used to read were a waiters blog and that of a traffic warden. Both very entertaining due to most of the entries being of that ‘this is what happened at work today’ variety. Both funny and infuriating until the traffic warden had to stop ‘cos his boss had found the site and the waiter started writing about his ‘amazing dreams’ 🙄
@xdc the doc wrote:
Whats you blog addy?
My random prattlings can be found here:
Pushing PixelsIt’s all bollox, and a great cure for insomnia.
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