Oh, and I've also read Tracy Kidders 'The Machine', which is a rather fascinating read about the development of a machine from Data General during 1979 that should be a 32 bit computer competing with the VAX. The book is supremely well written, and shows a lot of interest for the technical aspects of the challenges the design team faced, so I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to read more about the early days of our business.
Motivation I have been experiencing severe motivational problems lately, and I'm unsure what's causing them and what I should do to make them disappear. Most work I think of somehow doesn't seem worthwhile, and that makes it hard to just 'get things done'. Maybe it's because I lack some large project to delve into, or maybe I need to take some time off. Knowing what causes ones emotions can be hard sometimes.
Small rant I have been reading joel spolskys articles, because they are invariably well written, and often have some good perspectives on a lot of different things. I have also enjoyed his book recommendations, and read several of them. But I think this new initiative of translating the articles on joelonsoftware.com to several different languages seem like a bloody waste of time. The articles may be OK, but that does _not_ mandate translating them into 15 different languages. The only effect this initiative is having (on me at least) is to make me think that maybe joel spolsky is maybe becoming a bit too full of himself. I'd much rather like a review of Tom DeMarcos 'Slack' so I'll know if it's as good as Peopleware :-)