Book Review: Dreaming in Code

0zach • 8th Jan 2008 • Books • code

This one’s been out for a while, but I just got Scott Rosenberg’s “Dreaming in Code” for Christmas. It’s an inside view of the Chandler project, an open source effort by Lotus founder Mitch Kapor. They’re trying to create the ultimate personal information manager, a place to corral all your email, calendar appointments, notes, tasks, you name it. The project kicked off to great fanfare in 2003 and quickly got trapped in what software pioneer Fred Brooks calls “the tar pit.”

The book is about a software team, but it’s very much written for the layman. So if you have either a professional or personal interest in software, but are not yourself a coder, I can highly recommend the book as a way to get a better understanding of just what goes on to make software happen.

It’s especially good for software spouses. My wife tells me she thinks my work is very mysterious. I’m putting this one in her queue!

Happy New Year everyone.