Important Blog Posts, Part 2

This is the second part of an ongoing series in which I list blog posts that have profoundly impacted my personal thinking.  The first part is here.

 

1. Joel Spolsky: The Development Abstraction Layer

If you are someone who manages software developers, then your first priority must be to build the development abstraction layer.

Please read this essay.  I'm begging you.

 

2. Steve Yegge: Good Agile, Bad Agile

The inimitable Steve Yegge at his best.  There are so many jewels in this post.  No other blogger can consistently deliver epic posts with such absolute lucidity.

In this post, Steve paints a vivid picture of what it's like inside Google.  He describes how the developers are able to ship excellent products on time without following any particular methodology.

Stevey's ultimate point: be agile, not Agile.

 

3. Joel Spolsky: Human Task Switches Considered Harmful

This is another one of Joel's essential essays that I wish all managers would read.

In past jobs, I've noticed that many managers have little or no understanding of this concept, and have no idea that they are killing their developers' productivity.