Jorge Cardoso's Blog - Books

The Cathedral and the Bazaar - Eric S. Raymond

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 21:31:44 -0500

The Cathedral and the Bazaar analyzes, in a series of essays, the Open Source movement that took place mainly in the 1990s.

Raymond (the author of fetchmail) does this by first providing a theory about the behaviour of hackers that he classifies as a gift culture (members are valued not by how much they can buy but for how much they give away to the community).

He also does a very comprehensive job of analyzing the open source movement and the software industry and even provides some guidelines for deciding whether a piece of software should be developed as closed or open source software:

"In summary, the following discriminators push towards open source:

(a) reliability/stability/scalability are critical

(b) correctness of design and implementation cannot readily be verified by means other than independent peer review

(d) the software establishes or enables a common computing and communications infrastructure

(e) key methods (or functional equivalents of them) are part of common engineering knowledge."

(I took the above quote directly from Raymond's website. I don't know if all the essays that make up the book are online, but you can find a lot of his writings there.)

The Elements of Style - William Strunk and E. B. White

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:56:05 -0500

There are various books about how to write well in english, some directed at a specific public (like scientific writers), others directed at the general public. Many of these books, however, have a problem: they offer generic, vague advice.

The Elements of Style is a book directed at the general public that does not share this common problem. It's a short, concise book, written in an assertive style like no other I have read. To give you an idea of the writing style, here are some passages:

Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Flammable. An oddity, chiefly useful in saving lives. The common word meaning "combustible" is inflammable. But some people are thrown off by the in- and think inflammable means "not combustible." For this reason, trucks carrying gasoline or explosives are now marked FLAMMABLE. Unless you are operating such a truck and hence are concerned with the safety of children and illiterates, use inflammable.

Hopefully. This once-useful adverb meaning "with hope" has been distorted and is now widely used to mean "I hope" or "it is to be hoped." Such use is not merely wrong, it is silly. To say, "Hopefully, I'll leave on the noon plane" is to talk nonsense. Do you mean you'll leave on the noon plane in a hopeful frame of mind? Or do you mean you hope you'll leave on the noon plane? Whichever you mean, you haven't said it clearly. Although the word in its new, free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense.

Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software - Scott Rosenberg

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 18:50:20 -0500

Dreaming in Code is a great book about the difficulties of software engineering and development.

The main question that Rosenberg poses is "why is software development so hard?", and he gives examples of many big software projects gone awry, that resulted in great money losses or in much higer costs and development time.

A big part of the book is about the Chandler project development, that Rosenberg observed closely during three years, as a way to give the reader an inside view of a software project development and of the many reasons for a project to side-track. (Chandler is an open source calendar software developed by the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) and is, in itself, an interesting story even though Rosenberg didn't accompany it to the end. OSAF was founded by Mitch Kapor and seems to have developed only Chandler.)

Throughout the book Rosenberg cites many arguments from many people that say that software engineering should be more like civil engineering which has much more established practices and is much more predictable. I specially enjoyed Rosenberg's final remarks about a bridge that was being built at the same time that Chandler and how it's design, costs, and schedule changed during its implementation...

Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems - Steve Krug

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 00:27:15 -0400

The companion book to "Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability" is also a very pleasant, instructive and funny read.

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability - Steve Krug

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 11:13:32 -0400

This is one of those books that I had heard about frequently but never had never read, so when Amazon UK expanded their Super Saver Delivery to Portugal I decided to buy it (along with Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems ).

When I got the book I was a bit disappointed. The book was very thin, with lots of images and colour which made me think this was just a much hyped book that really offered no real insight about Web usability.

It turned out, however, to be a great book. I read it in two evenings and found Krug's discourse to be funny, to the point and valuable. He may not go into all of the details of Web usability like Nielsen's book (Designing Web Usability ), but exactly because of that, you get the most important issues discussed in a small, easy to read book.

Emotional Design, why we love (or hate) everyday things - Donald A. Norman

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:40:32 -0500

"Emotional Design" is Norman's realization that his "The Design of Everyday Things " book was kind of incomplete. Not that it was wrong, but it lacked a fundamental aspect of how people perceive and use things: emotion. In "Emotional Design" Norman presents a framework for design based on three levels of processing at the human brain:

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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:34:23 -0400

Unlike many other books that might be classified as personal development, self-help or self-management books, "The 7 Habits..." does not give you quick rules. The book describes a principle-centered approach to life and habits based on that approach. The title might suggest a time-management book, but it is not. It is not a GTD-like book and it will not keep your inbox at zero.

The habits are by no means quick and easy solutions, they require a lot of effort, strength and perseverance, but they all just "feel right".

The Long Tail - Chris Anderson

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:10:34 -0400

In a nutshell: the digital economy has made possible to take advantage of niche products in a unprecedented way. Products that don't sell enough don't make it to the stores because stores have limited shelf space. In the Web however, products don't need shelfs. Combine this with low delivery costs and the way to sell only a few of an imense variety opens up.

The Laws of Simplicity - John Maeda

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:56:04 -0400

A book to be read in a couple of hours.

Maeda writes about how simplicity influences our perception of things and how simplicity can be achieved in many different ways. He describes 10 laws to achieve simplicity:

Law 1: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Law 2: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

Law 3: Savings in time feel like simplicity.

Law 4: Knowledge makes everything simpler.

Law 5: Simplicity and complexity need each other.

Law 6: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is deï¬nitely not peripheral.

Law 7: More emotions are better than less.

Law 8: In simplicity we trust.

Law 9: Some things can never be made simple.

Law 10: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

The book has a companion site where Maeda wrote about examples of simplicity: http://lawsofsimplicity.com

To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design - Henry Petroski

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:20:04 -0400

The last post about "The Evolution of Useful Things" reminded me about another of Petroski's books that I read some years ago: "To Engineer is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design". It's also about failure but in a different perspective: how failure makes the engineering activity evolve.

Failure has, obviously, a tight relation with engineering. A great part of engineering is making sure that something works within certain bounds of acceptable (ab)use in the most efficient manner possible. In this book Petroski describes some well-known catastrophic failures of engineering structures like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and the Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel walkways and how they came to happen and how they served as example to improve subsequent structures.

These two books also remind me that scientific research is also much about finding failure and trying to develop a way to mitigate it....

The Evolution of Useful Things - Henry Petroski

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:08:41 -0400

This is a book about failure and how failure drives the design of all things.

Henry Petroski talks about forks, knifes, spoons, paper clips, screws, post-its, zippers, hammers, saws, metal (beberage) cans, ..., and how all these objects evolved through the perception that they failed in some (even if minor) way. The whole book is Petroski's argument against the "form follows function" adage.

The only fault I found on this book is that it is, in my opinion, a bit lengthy. Half-way through the book you will already agree that it is failure, in its many forms, that ultimately drives the evolution of things...

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions - Edwin Abbott

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 21:30:36 -0400

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions is a great little book by Edwin Abbott. Flatland is a mathematical adventure on geometry. It takes place on a two-dimensional world with a strict hierarchical society based on the shape of its individuals and it describes the consequences of the adventure of one of those individuals (a square) through the realms of three-dimensions.

It's a great book that makes us think about more-than-three-dimensional spaces and objects through analogy with two- and one- and even zero-dimensional worlds.

As I read this, I thought it would be interesting to see an animation version of this book, but it turns out there are already some movies on Flatland. There is even a recent one with Martin Sheen (voice).

The Research Methods Knowledge Base - William Trochim

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Fri, 22 May 2009 15:56:41 -0400

Another (aparently, I haven't finished it) good book about research design. In a more informal (yet accurate) language than the previous book, it describes epistemology, research questions, hypotheses, sampling, measurement, analysis...

Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches - John W. Creswell

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:11:42 -0400

A great book for those beggining to write a PhD proposal. It talks about the different types of knowledge claims and the typical research methods associated with them. It also offers very specific advice and even templates for content for different sections of the proposal such as the Introduction and Objectives sections. I found it a very practical book.

A InovaÃ§Ã£o: World Wide Web

nospam@example.com (Jorge Cardoso) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:07:13 -0500

Como tive de fazer um trabalho sobre uma inovaÃ§Ã£o para o programa de doutoramento, escolhi a Web e comprei o livro:

Weaving the Web : The Original Design and Ultimate Destiny of the World Wide Web by its Inventor

Li-o em trÃªs meios dias.Â Ã impressionante a velocidade a que as coisas aconteceram, a evoluÃ§Ã£o da Web e alguns dos jogos de interesses Ã volta dela. O livro Ã© de 1999, por isso, obviamente, nÃ£o conta a histÃ³ria toda.Â

Recomendo a leitura deste livro e do texto que escrevi sobre o assunto: http://jorgecardoso.eu/PhD/Inovacao/InovacaoWWW.html.O texto nÃ£o Ã© um resumo do livro, mas antes uma anÃ¡lise sob o ponto de vista da concepÃ§Ã£o da inovaÃ§Ã£o (causas, tecnologias relacionadas, evoluÃ§Ã£o, actores, etc). CorrecÃ§Ãµes e comentÃ¡rios sobre o texto sÃ£o bem-vindos neste post.

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