Editorial Review:

Amazon.com Review:
In the 80s, Tracy Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine attempted to define the story of the development of a minicomputer: from the new science to the business and nascent culture of electronic hardware and software that was characteristic of that time. Scott Rosenberg's Dreaming in Code draws on Kidder's model as it attempts to document the state of software, the Internet, and everything circa 2006 through the lens of Chandler, an as-yet-unfinished software application for the management of personal information.

The Chandler project--driven by Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development and main author of its 1-2-3 spreadsheet, and later co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation--isn't the primary point of Dreaming in Code, though reading about software people and their social behavior is at least as interesting as reading about that of meerkats or monkeys. Rather, Chandler is a rhetorical device with which Rosenberg takes on the big questions: How do software development teams work (or not)? Why does the reuse of software modules rarely work altogether correctly? Does open-source development by volunteers on the Internet lead to innovation or just insanely bifurcated chaos? Chandler helps his readers think more clearly about all of these issues; however, "answers" to these questions are, of course, not to be had, which is one of his points.

The problem with books about technical subjects that aspire to appeal to a general audience, particularly computers and software, is that such subjects are so far outside the realm of familiarity of most people that the prose bogs down in analogy and metaphor. Rosenberg manages to avoid too much of that and deliver a readable account of software development and culture. --David Wall

Product Description:
Our civilization runs on software. Yet the art of creating it continues to be a dark mystery, even to the experts. To find out why it’s so hard to bend computers to our will, Scott Rosenberg spent three years following a team of maverick software developers—led by Lotus 1-2-3 creator Mitch Kapor—designing a novel personal information manager meant to challenge market leader Microsoft Outlook. Their story takes us through a maze of abrupt
dead ends and exhilarating breakthroughs as they wrestle not only with the abstraction of code, but with the unpredictability of human behavior— especially their own.

Customer Reviews Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Best behind-the-scenes book since "Hackers"
I've not enjoyed a book this much since I read Steven Levy's "Hackers" - the behind-the-scenes stories and discussions are just great. I'm not a programmer by trade, but I dabbled a bit in high school and got some more in-depth training in college, but it wasn't my major... a book like this makes me realize not only ... Read More

Rating:

- hard to catagorize but a worthwhile read
i'm a sucker for any book on the margins between philosophy, social issues and computers, how and why they are shaping us and our communities.

this is kind of what the book is about.
to get a decent quick view of it, read chapter 10- engineers and artists, i think that the main points are on display ... Read More

Rating:

- Best book ever about what software development is REALLY like

I just finished reading an amazing book: "Dreaming in Code" by Scott Rosenberg. Like many good, recent non-fiction books, it alternates between a specific narrative with colorful real people, and general background information. In this case, it's the story of Chandler, a personal information management tool, and ... Read More

Rating:

- Excellent story about the complexity of software development
If you are interested in software development...read this book.

If you aren't interested in software development...read this book.

If you've always wondered why software development is such a tough thing to manage and predict completion...read this book.

Did I say that you should read ... Read More

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Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think (Theory in Practice (O'Reilly))

The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)

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

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

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

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

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

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