Customer Reviews

The Art of 'Ware: Sun Tzu's Classic Work Reinterpreted

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While Socrates, Plato and Aristotle generally get the most and best press in the Western world, there is another philosopher who has a more significant contemporary impact. Sun Tzu was a 5th century BC Chinese military genius who wrote about matters of conflict rather than the mind and nature. Now known as the The Art of War, his statements of strategy and tactics are now required reading in many corporate cultures as a preparation for the competitive global business climate. And have been required reading in military academies for decades. In this book the author takes those musings and adapts them to the creation of software. However, most of the ideas can be applied to business in general and not just to software.
Like most pearls of wisdom, the comments have a self-evident truth. Taking a paraphrased Sun Tzu statement, the author then expands and clarifies the point, adapting it to the culture of software creation. Sadly, but truthfully, most of those points are about failure rather than success. As he points out several times, the point is obvious and it is amazing that so many managers and CEO's fail to grasp it. Ideas such as:

1) Know the strengths and weaknesses of the competition.
2) Gather intelligence to track market and product trends.
3) Grab and retain the best people.
4) Aggressively defend your critical markets.
5) Ignore weak markets.
6) Know your own strengths and weaknesses.

are things that everyone agrees on but many ignore.
If you are a component in any phase of software development, you must read this book. Read it with one eye on the pages and your other, critical eye focused on a mirror reflecting your image. Like it or not, at some point you will read of some error that you have committed. I cannot improve on the phrase from the jacket, "utterly relevant."

Published in Mathematics and Computer Education, reprinted with permission.

Bruce Webster's interpretation of The Art of War is a jewel. The truths he gleaned so well from Sun Tzu will shine long after this or last years fadish corporate "catch phrase" programs have grown dim and have been forgotten.