Saturday, July 28, 2007

End of Story, by Peter Abrahams

End of Story, by Peter Abrahams

An unpublished writer gets a job working with inmates and decides one of them is innocent, taking it upon herself to solve a crime that is nearly ten years old. Why does she decide this felon is innocent? Because he is a great writer. (Clearly people with the noble skill of creating prose can’t be criminals, right?) This writer-cum-waitress is bright enough to figure out what happened to a guy that disappeared from witness protection, finds the obvious clue that all the cops missed at the time, but doesn’t see that breaking someone out of prison is a bad idea. Bleah. If you like one-dimensional characters, people used as MacGuffins, and telegraphed plots, then this is the mystery for you!

First Sentence:
“How is going the writing?” said Dragan Karodojic.

John Adams, by David McCullough

John Adams, by David McCullough

I’ve always been interested in the early days of our country, but until now have read mostly historical views of the times such as The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers and Witnesses at the Creation and not much about the lives of the people involved. Most of what I knew about Adams was vague snippets from high school history: a signer of the declaration, the first ambassador to the Court of St. James, and our second President. My wife and I recently saw a local performance of the musical 1776 and I realized how shallow my understanding was. I’d loved McCullough’s Truman, so I picked up his John Adams hoping for a similar experience. This is the second book for which McCullough has won a Pulitzer Prize and the second that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Much of the biography is told in the words of the subject: excerpts from letters written by Adams, his wife Abigail, or Thomas Jefferson appear on nearly every page. (To see how much insight we gain by looking at period correspondence is humbling; today email has clearly taken the place of hand-written letters and I suddenly think history will be poorer for it.) I was very surprised to see how integral Abigail was in John’s decision making process; I’ve always had the impression that the opinions of women at that time were considered trifling at best, but this union appears to be a true partnership, more like I’d expect to find today. McCullough clearly believes John Adams would never have achieved his success without the guidance of Abigail, and he makes an excellent case.

One frustrating thing for me was trying to keep all the players straight. I’m not sure if it was unique to the Adams family or simply the way it was done back then, but many people were given the same name as their father or mother. Three John Adamses, two John Quincy Adamses, and four Abigails in just four generations, and not a single Senior, Junior, or nickname in the bunch! The author does an admirable job of limiting the confusion, but at times it was hard to follow some of the passages. Overall, though, this is a minor quibble in what is otherwise a compelling read.

First Sentence:
In the cold, nearly colorless light of a New England winter, two men on horseback traveled the coast road below Boston, heading north.

Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management, by Johanna Rothman

Manage It! Your Guide to Modern, Pragmatic Project Management, by Johanna Rothman

This book is best summed up on the cover: “There is no One True Way that works for all projects.” That message alone makes this one of the most valuable management texts I’ve read in a while. Most books in this genre detail a single approach to project management and claim superiority over all others. Rothman take a much more pragmatic approach (not too surprising as this is published under The Pragmatic Programmer banner) that is refreshing in its honesty. Instead of being told to drink the kool-aid for any one particular style, we are shown the buffet and told to take what we want.

There are many gems of wisdom here, several of which resonated with me. The variety of topics is wide, ranging from planning to completion, managing up as well as down, hardware projects (albeit briefly) as well as software, and managing multi-site projects and multi-project programs. The topic of testing has a good overview as well, from unit level at one end of the spectrum to system testing at the other. One interesting discussion describes the difference between QA and testing (and today’s reality that most QA groups are really testing groups): QA can and should reach into all aspects of a product—including the development process itself—and has the power to make changes to improve the quality of not just the product but the organization as a whole. I’ve met a few QA managers that fit this description, but by and large I realize my experience has been with mis-titled testers instead; I suspect this section will color my view towards this area of software development for the foreseeable future.

One piece of advice I liked was the recommendation for managers to develop multiple skills while on a project: interpersonal, functional, domain, and non-technical. Instead of simply getting to know the requirements and schedules, work with everyone involved to become a well-rounded manager in both knowledge and skill. Even if the project fails (and Rothman also advocates that knowing when it is time to leave a failing company or project is an important skill) your professional development still advances. Too often it is too easy for me to get caught up in the day-to-day demands of getting a project to completion; remembering to stop and smell the flowers and examine the big picture strikes me as an excellent idea.

This book covers a wealth of topics and yet is less than 350 pages; this means that many terms and approaches aren’t covered in great detail. They are all summarized, though, and a healthy bibliography is in the back so avenues of further research are easily discovered. If you are about to embark on your first management gig or if you are a grizzled veteran, this text should be on your bookshelf.

First Sentence:
The easiest way to start a project wrong is to just start.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Texas Music

Diamonds in the Sun, by Walt Wilkins and the Mystiqueros

My wife and kids are our of town for a few days, so I thought I'd get out and see some live music—something I don't get to do much anymore.

I heard an artist a few months ago at SxSW that I really liked, Walt Wilkins. I've been waiting for his new CD ever since, so when I saw that he was performing at Antone's on Tuesday celebrating its release, I went. I'm really glad I did—the band sounded great! They played all the tracks from Diamonds in the Sun, plus several extra numbers. I didn't see too many people purchasing CDs before the band started playing, but midway through the set the ones they had on hand sold out! I wasn't quick enough to get one so I went down the street to Waterloo Records afterwards and picked it up. There were two other people in the store doing the same thing I was—surely a good sign for the disc. There are several great tunes here, but my early favorites are Stand Up Seven (a bluesy number with good advice) and Honky-Tonk Road (a story of a band on the road). Great CD, pick it up if you get a chance.

On Wednesday night I drove down to Hill's Cafe to hear Two Tons of Steel at the KVET Free Texas Music Series. It has been raining nearly every day here in Austin, but luckily it quit just enough for the band to perform (Hill's has an outside stage). Tow Tons is a great band; they call their sound countrybilly—I always think of Brian Setzer playing country music. Before the show I was talking to Chris Dodds, the drummer, and we discovered that several years ago he used to work for the same company I do now! Small world, for sure.

Monday, July 23, 2007

Ten Gallons!

“id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5090590954833926226 As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a regular blood donor. I went in this afternoon to give and was told I’d reached the ten gallon mark! I’m pretty happy, as I can’t seem to keep other good habits going on a regular basis. I’ll work out for a while, then lapse into watching sports on TV instead; I’ll eat healthy, then find myself gorging at Burger Tex; I’ll drink only water for a while, then spend $150 buying every style of Dogfish Head at Grape Vine Market and drink it all in a long weekend. For some reason, though, making fairly regular blood donations is something I’ve managed to keep up with over time. I struck up a conversation with a fellow donor and was fairly pleased with myself for reaching ten gallons—then he told me he’d just reached the fifty gallon mark. Yeah, fifty gallons! It took him 33 years, but still damn impressive. I’ve got a new goal now!

Saturday, July 07, 2007

The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball, by Scott Gray

The Mind of Bill James: How a Complete Outsider Changed Baseball, by Scott Gray

I found this book quite interesting, although the writing was terrible. I’ve heard a lot about Bill James and was looking forward to learning more about him. Because of the wide range of topics, this is neither a complete biography or a well-rounded baseball discussion. Gray is clearly a huge James fan and spent a lot of time fawning over him and making odd comparisons, such as “Bill James was the closest thing to Neo that the baseball matrix has ever seen.” The basics are covered (birth, marriage, kids) but not in much detail and thick with baseball allusions: “[Bill’s wife] threw out the ‘first ball,’ as it were—a baby girl named Rachel.” In addition to the sparse biographical information, we get long passages about James’ opinion on non-baseball topics such as what evidence juries can see and the criminal justice system. Of course, James did often weave such tangents into his Abstracts, so I suppose this could be seen as a parallel, but I found it distracting.

This book generated a lot of discussion in my book group. We are all baseball fans (or in one case, was before the strike) and I was surprised at the widely varying opinions. In fact, about all we could agree on was that this was a poorly written book! The biggest argument was around James’ contention that the minor league system is a charade: “Players are assigned to the minor league team ... without the team having any say ... anonymous young men playing to develop skills rather than playing to win. ... If you’re selling a sport and the players don’t care about winning, that’s not a sport. That’s a fraud.” While there is a bit of truth here, ironically we were discussing this while watching the local Triple-A franchise—along with over 8,500 other fans. Considering we were nine games out of first place and there was a 40+ minute rain delay, “fraud” seems an overstatement to me.

The appendix was by far my favorite part. It was a collection of short paragraphs that shared many of the essential ideas that James brought to the baseball world. Many of these show why he is considered controversial: clutch hitting is a myth, aggressive base running hurts a team more than it helps, and the designated hitter increases strategy to name a few. The ideas here countered many of the wilder opinions presented in the main text, such as having variable distances between the bases depending on the park dimensions. Yeah, you read that right!

First Sentence:
Like William Shatner singing “Rocket Man,” bad lineups have a perverse appeal.

The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker, edited by Matthew Diffee

The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker, edited by Matthew Diffee

A few months ago I read a book about rejected cartoons that was a bit disappointing. A friend then let me borrow this one, promising it was much better. He was right! Many of the cartoons made me laugh out loud and were funnier than others I’ve seen in the New Yorker. What this collection was missing was a description of why these in particular were rejected, although the implication is that they were too risqué or wierd for the magazine. There was a brief introduction to each artist that more than made up for this failing, though. Each artist filled out a two page questionnaire, which was filled to bursting with humor. Some doodled over the whole thing, others answered the questions with tongue firmly placed in cheek (“What’s the hardest part of cartooning?” “Groupies.”), but my favorites were where the cartoonist was asked to draw something about his childhood. Amusingly, an amazing number of them dealt with nuns and priests. This book is well worth your time!

First Sentence (from the introduction):
Let me tell you how lucky I am.

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