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by Michael Cote.
Original Post: Software Facts and Fallacies
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I got Robert Glass's Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering yesterday as a sort of self surprise: I'd forgotten I'd ordered it, so when Alex said, "you have another package," it was like Christmas at the office.
Anyhow, it's a fantastic book so far. As is the style now-a-days, it's a collection of small items, each leading off with an aphoristic-like sum-up; there're 55 items discussed via a standard Description/Discussion/Further Reader template. I like this format quite a bit: it's easy to skip around, refer back to it, and it doesn't have all the clutter of a more narrative form. But, enough about that.
Here's an excerpt discussing some of the "findings" from poplar (which Glass refers to as a "classic" throughout) on the relation between quality work and workspace:
They took members of a project team and separated the top quartile of performers from the bottom quartile (the top quartile performed 2.6 times better than the bottom). They then examined the working environment of those people at the top and those at the bottom. The top people had 1.7 times as much workspace (measured in available floor space in square feet). Twice as often, they found their workspace "acceptably quite." More than 3 times as often, they found it "acceptably private." Between 4 and 5 times as often, they could divert phone calls or silence their phone. They were interrupted by other people (needlessly) about half as often.
The premise of the book can easily be gleamed from it's original title, Fifty-Five Frequently Forgotten Fundamental Facts (and a Few Fallacies) about Software Engineering. Glass was hoping it'd become know as "The F-Book." As Glass notes on the decision to shorten the title, "the letter F is probably the only dirty letter in our alphabet (H and D have their advocates, also, but F seems to reach another level of dirtiness.
Like I said, it's a really good book so far. You should probably read it too.
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