Jeff Atwood blogged about the free online book Almost Perfect earlier this week. Author Pete Peterson was part of WordPerfect for 12 years and opens a window into development process, marketing, competition, and highs and lows of the company, from a small starter to a big corporation. I think the broader themes in this book are still applicable today - the enthusiastic team learning on its feet, finding creative ways to compete, dealing with customers and incorporating feedback, handling "feature creep" and release schedules, and the culture of an organisation (in this case, run by programmers). Pete doesn't come across as...

My mother-in-law Marijke gave me a special surprise the other day: a hand-me-down copy of the 1984 tome "Choosing and Using Your Home Computer: An Introductory Course". Marijke had bought it some time ago to learn about computers. The book is a classic, from the time when PC's were called "microcomputers". It covers the latest hardware available at the time, the BASIC language, accessories like printers, plotters and the new-fangled "mouse", sprite graphics, games and the business case for computers. What makes this book more poignant is that I was into computers in 1984. I had a Commodore 64, and one of...

I've recently finished the excellent Defensive Design for the Web, authored by some of the people behind 37 Signals (Getting Real, Signal vs. Noise blog). The book is subtitled "How to improve error messages, help, forms and other crisis points", and is referenced in Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think - one of the key reasons behind me reading it (I enjoyed Steve Krug's book a lot). At only 246 pages, Defensive Design is a short book which means it's a quick read (and not very expensive!). There's lots of illustrations, and the book is neatly divided up into digestible chapters,...

Over several weeks I've been reading 37signals' (makers of web apps Basecamp and Highrise) book Getting Real. The whole book can be read online at http://gettingreal.37signals.com/toc.php. The book describes 37signals' design and operating philosophy, based on their experience working in small teams to design software. The book is easy to read: there's no code, each chapter is divided into bite-size essays, the book is well-written and a lot of the advice really makes sense, especially if you have read anything about "agile" processes previously. 37signals has well-deserved credibility, as their apps are fairly successful and can be used as prime examples of...