An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software—and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know. Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really hard, or are software developers just not that good at it? In The Problem with Software, Adam Barr examines the proliferation of bad software, explains what causes it, and offers some suggestions on how to improve the situation. For one thing, Barr points out, academia doesn't teach programmers what they actually need to know to do their jobs: how to work in a team to create code that works reliably and can be maintained by somebody other than the original authors. As the size and complexity of commercial software have grown, the gap between academic computer science and industry has widened. It's an open secret that there is little engineering in software engineering, which continues to rely not on codified scientific knowledge but on intuition and experience. Barr, who worked as a programmer for more than twenty years, describes how the industry has evolved, from the era of mainframes and Fortran to today's embrace of the cloud. He explains bugs and why software has so many of them, and why today's interconnected computers offer fertile ground for viruses and worms. The difference between good and bad software can be a single line of code, and Barr includes code to illustrate the consequences of seemingly inconsequential choices by programmers. Looking to the future, Barr writes that the best prospect for improving software engineering is the move to the cloud. When software is a service and not a product, companies will have more incentive to make it good rather than “good enough to ship."

An industry insider explains why there is so much bad software—and why academia doesn't teach programmers what industry wants them to know. Why is software so prone to bugs? So vulnerable to viruses? Why are software products so often delayed, or even canceled? Is software development really hard, or are software developers just not that good at it? In The Problem with Software, Adam Barr examines the proliferation of bad software, explains what causes it, and offers some suggestions on how to improve the situation. For one thing, Barr points out, academia doesn't teach programmers what they actually need to know to do their jobs: how to work in a team to create code that works reliably and can be maintained by somebody other than the original authors. As the size and complexity of commercial software have grown, the gap between academic computer science and industry has widened. It's an open secret that there is little engineering in software engineering, which continues to rely not on codified scientific knowledge but on intuition and experience. Barr, who worked as a programmer for more than twenty years, describes how the industry has evolved, from the era of mainframes and Fortran to today's embrace of the cloud. He explains bugs and why software has so many of them, and why today's interconnected computers offer fertile ground for viruses and worms. The difference between good and bad software can be a single line of code, and Barr includes code to illustrate the consequences of seemingly inconsequential choices by programmers. Looking to the future, Barr writes that the best prospect for improving software engineering is the move to the cloud. When software is a service and not a product, companies will have more incentive to make it good rather than “good enough to ship."

A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt. There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies. Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.

All software design is composition: the act of breaking complex problems down into smaller problems and composing those solutions. Most developers have a limited understanding of compositional techniques. It's time for that to change.In "Composing Software", Eric Elliott shares the fundamentals of composition, including both function composition and object composition, and explores them in the context of JavaScript. The book covers the foundations of both functional programming and object oriented programming to help the reader better understand how to build and structure complex applications using simple building blocks.You'll learn: Functional programmingObject compositionHow to work with composite data structuresClosuresHigher order functionsFunctors (e.g., array.map)Monads (e.g., promises)TransducersLensesAll of this in the context of JavaScript, the most used programming language in the world. But the learning doesn't stop at JavaScript. You'll be able to apply these lessons to any language. This book is about the timeless principles of software composition and its lessons will outlast the hot languages and frameworks of today. Unlike most programming books, this one may still be relevant 20 years from now.This book began life as a popular blog post series that attracted hundreds of thousands of readers and influenced the way software is built at many high growth tech startups and fortune 500 companies

Joel, Apress, Blogs, and Blooks ...I was learning the hard way about how to be a publisher and probably spending way too much time looking at web sites and programming than I should have in response to that. Anyway, one day I came across this web site called , which was run by a guy with strong opinions and an unusual, clever writing style, along with a willingness to take on the conventional wisdom. In particular, he was writing this ongoing series about how bad most user interfaces were—mostly because programmers by and large knew, as Joel and I would say, using the same Yiddish–derived NYC vernacular that we both share, “bupkis” about what users really want. And I, like many, was hooked both by the series and the occasional random essay that Joel wrote. And then I had this epiphany: I'm a publisher, I like reading his stuff, why not turn it into a book?... Read the complete Foreword — Gary Cornell, Cofounder, Apress Since the release of the bestselling title Joel on Software in 2004, requests for a sequel have been relentless. So, we went back to the famed JoelonSoftware.com archives and pulled out a new batch of favorites, many of which have been downloaded over one million times. With Joel's newest book, More Joel on Software, you'll get an even better (not to mention updated) feast of Joel's opinions and impressions on software development, software design, running a software business, and so much more. This is a new selection of essays from the author's web site, http://www.joelonsoftware.com. Joel Spolsky started his weblog in March 2000 in order to offer his insights, based on years of experience, on how to improve the world of programming. This weblog has become infamous among the programming world, and is linked to more than 600 other web sites and translated into 30+ languages! Spolsky's extraordinary writing skills, technical knowledge, and caustic wit have made him a programming guru. With the success of Joel on Software, there has been a strong demand for additional gems and advice, and this book is the answer to those requests. Containing a collection of all–new articles from the original, More Joel on Software has even more of an edge than the original, and the tips for running a business or managing people have far broader application than the software industry. We feel it is safe to say that this is the most useful book you will buy this year.

Cites successful examples of community-based policing.