That’s what I actually did in these summer months, reorganizing things in my home-office as well as reorganizing thoughts and relaxing my mind with some very good books to get ready for the incoming busy months.
Among the books I read the most entertaining has been Joel on software, a collection of the writings by Joel Spolsky, CEO of Fogcreek software house, originally posted on his well known blog. It contains views, comments, rants and raves about software development so brilliant that I found myself exclamating a “That’s so true!” after reading lots of passages.
Software development is not like any other artigianal work, it’s pure design, as Joel states, that’s why the skills needed to be a good programmer or even a program manager are so peculiar.
I also read a couple of very interesting books about personal leadership and human social relationships. Another one was much more related to my work on mobile devices, Windows Mobile Guida Pratica, a beginner’s guide about devices with the Windows Mobile OS, written by the Italian friend developer Massimo Mangia.
I met him the last evening here in Como with great pleasure since there are only a handful of independent developers in Italy and you can imagine how much such occasion can be so special when guys like us get the chance to share their views and problems about the work they do with so much passion.
So, a needed pause from actual coding work to save energies and prepare myself for the incoming months which do look very busy. More about that in the next update.