The Peopleware Papers: Notes on the Human Side of Software [Paperback]

Larry L. Constantine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2001

When it comes to the human side of software, nobody speaks with as much insight as Larry Constantine: developers and managers worldwide recognize his Constantine on Peopleware as the classic in the field. In The Peopleware Papers, Constantine thoroughly updates all 52 of the legendary columns in that book, and adds 25 new essays published for the first time in book form. These 77 essays offer powerful guidance on virtually every software development challenge in the "no-man's land" where technical and social issues blur, psychology meets cybernetics, and theory and practice intersect. Constantine's range is extraordinary: project management, group development, discipline vs. chaos, tools, models, methods, processes, personalities, usability, and beyond. The Peopleware Papers includes two completely new sections: one on organizational culture, and another on making software objects more usable -- including Constantine's hard-to-find, breakthrough essays on usage-centered design. For every IT manager, executive, project team participant, and business consumer involved with software development.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

When it comes to the human side of software, nobody speaks with as much insight as Larry Constantine: developers and managers worldwide recognize his Constantine on Peopleware as the classic in the field. In The Peopleware Papers, Constantine thoroughly updates all 52 of the legendary columns in that book, and adds 25 new essays published for the first time in book form.

These 77 essays offer powerful guidance on virtually every software development challenge in the "no-man's land" where technical and social issues blur, psychology meets cybernetics, and theory and practice intersect. Constantine's range is extraordinary: project management, group development, discipline vs. chaos, tools, models, methods, processes, personalities, usability, and beyond.

The Peopleware Papers includes two completely new sections: one on organizational culture, and another on making software objects more usable—including Constantine's hard-to-find, breakthrough essays on usage-centered design.

About the Author

LARRY CONSTANTINE has been an innovator in software engineering practice and theory for nearly four decades. He is Adjunct Professor in the School of Computing Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney (Australia), where he teaches software engineering and organizational change management. He is also Director of Research and Development for Constantine Lockwood, Ltd., a leading consultancy specializing in usage-centered design. In addition to the legendary Constantine on Peopleware, his recent books include Software for Use (Addison-Wesley, with Lucy Lockwood), winner of the 1999 Jolt Product Excellence Award.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 2nd edition (April 6, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130601233
• ISBN-13: 978-0130601230
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,743,180 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic - well worth reading, November 4, 2003

By 

Keith Appleyard "kapple999" (Brighton, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Peopleware Papers: Notes on the Human Side of Software (Paperback)

Fantastic : I wish I'd read these articles when they were originally published over the period 1992-1995.

There are 77 essays, which even today, 10 years after their original publication, have lost none of their relevance to those working in the field.

There was barely a single essay that I didn't get some benefit from reading, but I particularly liked the essays on.
- Cowboy Coders
- Collaboration
- All of Section 4, Tools, Models and Methods, which gives a number of very visionary essays on CASE
- Reuse
- Usable Objects
- Use Cases

I can't recommend the book enough; I'm certainly going to think twice before I lend it out to anyone, in case it never comes back!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Social Issues in Software Development, October 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Peopleware Papers: Notes on the Human Side of Software (Paperback)

There are few books that discuss the social issues of software development. This book not only does that, but it has a well-rounded variety of topics.

You don't have to be interested in every topic to get something out of this book. I thought this book would have been worthwhile if I'd only been interested in one or two of the groups of topics.

Since this is a collection of his articles, the chapters tend to be short, so this is a book that tends to be fairly easy-to-read and appropriate for most of the people you might want to recommend it to.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and Inspiring Bedside Reading, October 28, 2001

By 

"microtherion" (Sim City, CA (Somewhere in the Bay Area)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Peopleware Papers: Notes on the Human Side of Software (Paperback)

This book is a collection of Constantine's columns published in a variety of magazines. I was not familiar with his work previously, and this book shows why he was a successfuly columnist: In each of his 4-6 page chapters, he successfully drives a particular point home.

This book is probably not suitable as a text book for any particular topic, but it can get your thought process in various disciplines started. Since the chapters are very short and independent, it is ideally suited as bathroom or bedside reading material. What works a bit to the detriment of this strategy is that the chapters are sorted by topic; counterintuitive as this may sound, in a book like this, I would prefer for the topics to be mixed up.

A slight peeve is the unsealed paper binding of this book, which smudges easily. I hope publishers are reconsidering their use of this binding, which seems to be on the increase.