While culling books from the shelves in my study (to make room for more books), I found a quaint little book my grandfather had left me. Eugene A. Znosko-Borowsky's "How Not to Play Chess" (David McKay Company, 1939). In the first chapter, the author writes
"Less pardonable are the obvious mistakes in simple positions, especially in the beginning of the game, which is now so carefully analyzed. One despairs when one thinks of all the effort expended on the study of chess, and of the poverty of results. Year after year the same elementary mistakes are repeated, the same antediluvian traps claim their victims."Change a few words, and he's talking about the state of the practice in running software projects.
Clearly we should redouble our efforts to study the first steps of a software project!
Re:Antediluvian Software Development
dws on 2003-08-08T05:09:49
As it happens, about a dozen of the books I culled where project management books. A few of the older ones extolled the virtues of Waterfall. There's been a lot of study on how to run software projects, much of it well-intentioned nonsense.I've seem many software projects doomed, or at best crippled, from the outset, either by silly management decisions or by inappropriate choice of methodology. Or by both ("We need this quickly, but we also want to be CMM Level 3 by the end of the year").
Alas, software development will never be chess. So instead of always repeating the same classic mistakes, we get to add new ones.
Re:Antediluvian Software Development
chromatic on 2003-08-08T23:50:06
I don't think any software project is doomed unless it's completely incapable of solving the customer's needs. That said, there are plenty of doomed projects.
I'm more interested in the middle of the project, though. No matter how well you start, I think the more discipline and better communication you have when you're actually coding, the better your chances of success. I've been accused of being a cowboy, though, by starting to code so soon.
Re:the wrong way
chaoticset on 2003-08-08T14:27:45
Every time my SO discusses moving, I start thinking about how hard it's going to be to lug all 6 bookshelves of books around, because they'll all have to be unloaded from the shelves, the shelves themselves moved, the books stored in something else temporarily...The apartment always seems more livable after this, somehow.
:\ Re:the wrong way
jmm on 2003-08-08T15:58:25
Only 6 shelves of books? Sounds easy.We had over a dozen shelves of books the last time we moved - that was in 1986. More have been added since then. (We also decided at the time that we were not about to move again for a long time.
:-) Heck, just my paperback SF is way way over 6 normal sized shelves. They are actually stored on a single custom made "bookshelf". Each "shelf" is made from a 4x8 sheet of plywood. Cut out two rectangles to form a giant letter E. The spine of the E is 6", the 3 cross strokes are each 12". Repeat 9 times to make 10 of these pieces and stack them vertically about 8" apart, with the spine of the E running alng a wall and the cross strokes extending out from the wall. (These 6", 12", and 8" numbers are mental estimates - the 8" inch vertical is slightly taller than a standard paperback, the 6" depth is a single book deep, and the 12" legs allow a single book deep on either side.) There is room here for about 4000 paperbacks. Each "shelf" made from a sheet of plywood acts like 8 shelves - 2 on each side of the three cross strokes of the E, and two on the sections of the spine.
There are about a dozen shelves sized for hardcover books around the house, and the cupboard of the computer room is fitted with 7 or 8 shelves about 7 feet wide.
Re:the wrong way
chaoticset on 2003-08-09T20:37:04
Well, I'm only 24. I've got plenty of time to get more books.Besides, I haven't managed to read all of these yet. I longingly remember the days of my youth, when I would look over the bookshelves at home (a wall of them that was three times my height, then twice my height, then just a few feet taller than me) and realize that I'd read half that whole wall. I don't feel like I have time to read much any more.
Perhaps I should go carve some out...
:\ Re:the wrong way
dws on 2003-08-08T16:24:04
If you're worried about unloading that many shelves, that implies that their configuration is rather static. Don't you find that you periodically need to rearrange things so that you can keep the books you're using now within reach?That's my problem. The shelves within easy reach of my study chair were full of old cruft, some of which I unlikely to ever read again in this lifetime. Meanwhile, the stack on the side of the bed kept toppling over, and the stack in the bathroom kept getting knocked over. My wife has banned the stack that was next to my favorite chair in the living room, so those books had to go somewhere.
Culling took quite a while, because I had to skim each book to make a decision about it I could live with. I rediscovered that 10-15 years back I used to use postcards as bookmarks, and found some really neat ones.
Re:the wrong way
chaoticset on 2003-08-09T20:31:18
I haven't been able to get another bookshelf to put in the bathroom (you cannot imagine what an uphill struggle it was to get a coffee table in there!) so there's three stacks in there.The shelves within easy reach of my study chair were full of old cruft, some of which I unlikely to ever read again in this lifetime. Meanwhile, the stack on the side of the bed kept toppling over, and the stack in the bathroom kept getting knocked over. My wife has banned the stack that was next to my favorite chair in the living room, so those books had to go somewhere.I've got several shelves around the computer area (normally I can find what I need within two minutes), and two shelves in the bedroom. (Another uphill struggle with the SO -- the bedroom's not as big as it needs to be -- but I opined that they would prove useful within two days, and they did.)
Keep in mind my collection's rather puny compared to some, so I'm probably not having the kinds of distribution issues I'll have when it's twice as large. I'm only 24, and lots of my reference needs were once served by the lovely Britannica that my father owns (which is just gorgeous, it's all leatherbound, absolutely fabulous books).
Some days I really miss that set. It had the wonderful distinction of being aesthetically pleasing, extremely useful, and kinesthetically wonderful as well -- they felt just great.
*nostalgic sigh*
