This should, of course, be subtitled “Books Not To Read If You Are Me.” These aren’t necessarily bad books (in fact, both of them are good books) but they weren’t that useful to me or to people in exactly my situation. Take this with as much salt as you feel appropriate, depending on what you’re [...]
I just finished reading two different books on software development and management; both are highly recommended.
First, and best is Peopleware, by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. This is another one of those must-read books. I’ve been telling everyone that I can’t believe I’ve been allowed to have the job I have without reading it. If [...]
If you’re in the business of developing software, you should read the “Joel On Software” book. Period.
(Shortest review I’ve ever written.)
While I don’t agree with everything Joel has written, I find most of what he writes to be a clear exposition of common-sense approaches to managing software development. No BS, just simple stuff that works. [...]
I’m attempting to set up Duplicity as a backup tool, running from cron over ssh, to backup my home directory to another server.
I of course already have passwordless SSH set up to connect to that server, and use ssh-agent to store the passphrase for my SSH key, as described in another entry. However, I could [...]
I must say, this article by Steve Yegge has done quite a bit to refine my thoughts about hiring geeks. (The beginning is a little long-winded. Push through. It’s worth it.)
On the other hand, I’ve met exactly ONE of the type he’s talking about in my career. Not sure where that leaves me as a [...]
It generally works pretty well, but I found the following problem, and Google was no help:
Building the VMware VmPerl Scripting API.
Using compiler “/usr/bin/gcc”. Use environment variable CC to override.
Unable to compile the VMware VmPerl Scripting API.
********
The VMware VmPerl Scripting API was not installed. Errors encountered during
compilation and installation of the module can be found here:
/tmp/vmware-config4
You [...]
I’m transitioning my daily work desktop from OS X Leopard to Kubuntu Hardy. (I’ll be writing more about that in the future.) My job is split between managing people and doing development and system administration for a bunch of Ubuntu boxes, so running the same platform that I’m administering makes a lot of sense. I [...]
In much of the web, being called an Apple Fanboy simply means you’re debunking myths thrown about by Mac-haters. And the Macalope is great at that. And if that is being an Apple Fanboy, then I am guilty. There’s a lot of hate thrown around there just because Macs are “cool” and some people have [...]
I just finished “Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software” by Michael T. Nygard, from The Pragmatic Programmers. This isn’t the book I thought it was when I bought it, but it’s still a really valuable read. “Release It!” focuses on (and most of the author’s experience seems to be) massive, web-scale e-commerce sites, generally [...]
I’m having a … crisis of confidence isn’t the right word, but I’m not sure what is. Let me set the stage. I work at a spectacular place, and have a job I care deeply about.
The success of our company depends on my performance. If I do my job poorly, our company could go broke, [...]