The Software Practitioner is a bi-monthly newsletter created by Robert L. Glass, author of the famous book Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, which is listed at #82 in the Top 100 Best Software Engineering Books Ever. In his newsletter, Bob highlights software engineering news, he evaluates international studies and reports, and critically reviews books and articles. The newsletter also has guest appearances by professional practitioners and authors.
Here's some interesting stuff I found in the last two editions:
- The famous Standish reports are wrong: their numbers of failed projects are too high;
- A poll says that the best programming languages for beginners to study are C# and Java;
- The quality of open source is not higher than that of proprietary source;
- Improved processes and process frameworks like CMMI, do not produce better software;
- Maintenance programming is just a form of new development, but with some added constraints.
To top it all, as a Dutch cherry on an Australian pudding, each edition of The Software Practitioner now ends with a regular column by yours truly, called "Dutch Treat". Bob has decided to include my contributions under a "humor" warning sign, which hopefully makes my writing easier to swallow. (Despite the fact that I'm always dead serious about everything. Even my hamster George says so.)
Delivery of The Software Practitioner is actually a paid subscription service, but Bob has kindly allowed me to share a free edition with my readers. Yes, that's YOU! You can download your FREE COPY HERE (PDF, 450KB). If you like the newsletter, please do Bob and me a favor, and subscribe to it. It's only $39 for a full year - that's hardly more than one book!
And with such a well-known author like Robert L. Glass you can be sure that there are lots of famous people on his list of subscribers. Make sure that you know what the others know!
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