The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Paul Graham's Book

Just read that Paul Graham of Yahoo Store and Bayesian spam filtering fame has just had a book published by O'Reilly: http://www.paulgraham.com/hackpaint.html

Matthew Lock
Friday, May 7, 2004

Good for him and good for you for telling us.

Do you work for O'Reilly by any chance?

grunt
Friday, May 7, 2004

I picked up and read the sample Chapter 2. The book is beautiful. For example:

"So if you can figure out a way to get in a design war with a company big enough that its software is designed by product managers, they’ll never be able to keep up with you."

I think JOS readers would appreciate the book. I'm a little surprised the publishers didn't inlcude Joel among all the stars providing quotes for the foreword.

Friday, May 7, 2004

Is the book just a collection of the essays on Graham's website? There seems to be a lot of overlap.

Julian
Friday, May 7, 2004

> Good for him and good for you for telling us.
> Do you work for O'Reilly by any chance?

I wish. No I just thought you guys would appreciate the book.

And yes I think the original versions of essays from the book are online: http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

They are worth reading too.

Matthew Lock
Saturday, May 8, 2004

> I think JOS readers would appreciate the book. I'm a little
> surprised the publishers didn't inlcude Joel among all the
> stars providing quotes for the foreword.

I don't think Joel and Paul see eye to eye on many things. There have been some interesting exchanges a few years back on this forum between them: (Paul Graham was behind Yahoo Store before Yahoo bought it)

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/fog0000000322.html

http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=1826

http://discuss.fogcreek.com/newyork/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=1998&ixReplies=32

Matthew Lock
Saturday, May 8, 2004

From the first article "Better that 100,000 users should feel stupid than one programmer admit he didn't do a very good job."

That must be the *nix/OSS party line.

Dave
Saturday, May 8, 2004

I wasn't aware of the Joel/Graham tiff. Very interesting. Both very insightful blokes.

Of course, Graham is a bit wrong when he implies that anyone wanting to do good development will turn to open source. If you're really good, you start your own product and company.

Saturday, May 8, 2004

Mathew

are you Paul's brother by any chance?

Judas Priest
Saturday, May 8, 2004

Shhh, yes, I'm Paul's brother and I work as an Astroturfer for O'Rielly, but keep it a secret ;)

Matthew Lock
Saturday, May 8, 2004

"Good for him and good for you for telling us.

Do you work for O'Reilly by any chance? "

Has JOS been invaded by the slashdot crowd? Once again, someone post something that might interest someone blasts him for posting it.

Whatever
Saturday, May 8, 2004

I actually discovered the book yesterday, and was going to post here after reading the sample chapter, but someone else beat me to it.

I like Paul Graham. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of ARC, the lisp like language he is working on.

I like his writing. Just think it would be nice to have some notification when he publishes a new article.

Tapiwa
Saturday, May 8, 2004

Oh yeah, I think the book is inspired by the articles on his website.

The sample chapter smells of a previous article he has written, but with a bit more meat.

I think Joel is doing the same with his essays...

Tapiwa
Saturday, May 8, 2004

I too have been waiting to see a release of the Arc language..... (2001) and waiting..... (2002) and waiting..... (2003) and-- (2004)... oh, forget it.

If it turns out to be brilliant, I hope it will revolutionize programming for my future offspring.

Likes long walks, short piers
Saturday, May 8, 2004

How do you know you'll ever have future offspring?

Joe Shmoe
Saturday, May 8, 2004

Maybe he's pregnant already.

rob mayoff
Saturday, May 8, 2004