Sai Panyam.NET

Review

Rating: 9

If you want to know the accumulated wisdom of the last three decades of software engineering from one place, then this book is a must read. He has divided the book into 55 facts and 10 fallacies. For some years now I have struggled with some ‘facts’ that I new to be true through experience, but I could never substantiate it because I couldn’t quote authoritative sources. Well I found those ‘facts’ in this book with authoritative sources and discussion. For e.g. FACT 19: Modification of reused code is error prone. If more than 20%-25% of a component is to be revised, it is more efficient and effective to rewrite from scratch. Corollory to Fact 19: It is almost always a mistake to modify packaged, vendor-produced software systems. FACT 21: For every 25% increase in problem complexity there is a 100% increase in complexity of the software solution. These and other facts certainly ring true. There are other facts and even fallacies that I was afraid to voice until I read this book. For e.g. Fallacy 3:Programming can and should be ego less. The only issue I have with the treatment of the subject matter is that the author has not taken the book to its logical conclusion. If he could have pointed us, the readers to better practices for building software, it would have been excellent. But then I am asking for too much, isn’t it?
Robert Glass has turned out a well written book. This is the first book that I have read of this author. I certainly plan to read his other titles. I am impressed.