Customer Reviews

Software Conflict 2.0: The Art and Science of Software Engineering

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This Bob Glass book is a real "closet classic" of software literature, and one that deserves to be back in print. Originally published in 1990 or so, it's composed of technology-agnostic essays that cut right to the heart of development concerns. As with so many other classic programming books (Brooks' "Mythical Man-Month", Yourdon's "Death March", Weinberg's "Understanding the Professional Programmer", and McConnell's "After the Gold Rush" all leap to mind) the insights it contains remain relevant years after original publication. An added bonus is that this revised edition not only contains all the original material, but adds the author's retrospective opinions to each group of essays.
While most developers stick blindly to purely technical reading (if they do any outside reading at all), books like this are where the real thought-provoking ideas are. Covering topics like the benefits of reuse, the link between quality and maintenance, various flavors of project management, and more (there are a total of 60 short essays in the book), there is more than enough food for thought here for any software pro.
If you only do technology-specific reading, you owe it to yourself and your career to broaden your perspective. This is a great book for that. And if you already read general interest software books, don't miss this one. Great stuff.

I like Bob Glass. I find many of his observations right on the mark. When this book appeared on the new book self at my office, I was looking forward to his wise observations on the current state of the art and science of software engineering.

I could not have been more mistaken.

The chapters in this book are, I guess, articles from his time at IEEE Computer or some other such periodical in the early 1990s at best. I don't recall having read the first edition but my hunch tells me these are essentially the same now as then. What appears to have been done is to only add a brief few paragraphs at the end of each major collection of columns (six of them) so the total new material equals, what, five pages?

Well, maybe that the insights are so timeless that it didn't need any changes. Why I grant that a few did stand somewhat OK, the vast majority fell flat. The old references, the lack of any real attempt to address the present situations distracted any attempt to see the old wisdom. Only the old would really get it.

So my advice is if you want to get these insights, pick up a cheaper first edition. Hey, you can probably find it at the library or being given away at a garage sell in the local geek area. The new material does not make it worth the price.

This book is a collection of short, easy-to-read, yet thought-provoking essays by someone who's been in the field for decades. Essays are as-is from the first edition (1990) and then each section has an update for 2006. Some things have changed in software, but many have stayed the same. Read, think, talk with co-workers, see what any of these articles prompt you to do or change to make things better.

As a companion to "Software Creativity 2.0" this book just rounds things out. Sure, what's in there is common knowledge, but it is well written and extremely well organized. It's a bit harder to read than Creativity 2.0, but it's still worth going through.

It's just your typical essay. If are a fevered reader then this is worth picking up. Otherwise, I think this can be easily passed up for some other collections of information and other essays by Glass.