Customer Reviews

Great Software Debates (Practitioners)

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This not a bad book, but if you happen to read IEEE Software regularly, there is almost nothing new. I have not yet read the whole book, and Davis claims that he has updated the original articles, but most of the stuff has not changed.

On the other hand, if you have not read the articles before, they are quite fun to read, e.g. "Art or Engineering, One More Time".

But I have an issue with the title: the "debates" are mostly some paragraphs at the end of the article, that are more like questions in a text book that might start a debate, but do not really dig into a controversial issue.

I very much prefer, Robert E. Glass': "Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering", which contains similiar topics, but is much more to the point. And makes the controversies on his issues much more explicit.

Funnily, Glass, on the other hand, thinks very highly of an older book of Davis': "201 Principles of Software Development"

Davis presents a set of essays on various aspects of developing software. But these are not at the narrow technical level of purely programming issues. Instead they concern higher level and more intangible matters. Often involving managing a team.

Especially interesting was a chapter where Davis delved into a software startup that he cofounded. It gave the travails faced by many startups, and not just in computing. Like how they started in a garage and then upgraded to an unfinished office space. And how the founders shared all sorts of information with their employees.

But his company seemed to have two key problems. While they applied for 3 patents, these were ultimately denied by the US Patent and Trademark Office, because others had pre-empted them. So unfortunately, they were not innovative enough. Or, at least, not innovative early enough.

Another problem appears to have been the narrow scope of their products. These did not address critical enough problems at potential customers. Resulting in very few sales.