Non-Fiction:

• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb ★★★★★
• The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children by Katherine Stewart ★★★★
• The End of Education: Redefining the Value of School by Neil Postman ★★★★
• To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism by Evgeny Morozov ★★★
• An Accidental MP by Martin Bell ★★★
• Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic by John De Graaf ★★ (my review)
• The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement by David Graeber ★
• Arguing for Basic Income: Ethical Foundations for a Radical Reform by Philippe van Parijs ★
• A Price to Pay: The Inside Story of the Natwest Three by David Bermingham ★
• Digital Vertigo: How Today’s Online Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing, and Disorienting Us by Andrew Keen ★ (my review)

Fiction (Series):

• Inferno (Robert Langdon, #4) by Dan Brown ★★★
• The Case of the Vagabond Virgin by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom (Perry Mason #33) by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Cautious Coquette (Perry Mason Mystery, #34) by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Negligent Nymph by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the One-Eyed Witness by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Fiery Fingers by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Angry Mourner by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Grinning Gorilla by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Hesitant Hostess by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★★ (my review)
• The Case of the Green-Eyed Sister by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Fugitive Nurse by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★

Fiction (Non-Series):

Total: ~7061 pages

Non-Fiction:

• Levels of Life by Julian Barnes ★★★★★
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach ★★★★
• So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love by Cal Newport ★★★★ (my review)

Fiction (Series):

• The Case of the Drowning Duck by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Empty Tin by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Careless Kitten by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Buried Clock by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Drowsy Mosquito by Erle Stanley Gardner ★
• The Case of the Crooked Candle by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• Case of the Black Eyed Blonde by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Golddigger’s Purse by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Borrowed Brunette by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Fan-Dancer’s Horse by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Lazy Lover by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Lonely Heiress by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★

Fiction (Non-Series):

Total: ~5040 pages

Non-Fiction:

• What Does China Think? by Mark Leonard ★★★★★ (my review)
• KLF: Chaos Magic Music Money by J.M.R. Higgs ★★★★★
• The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Most Exclusive School for Startups by Randall Stross ★★★★ (my review)
• Why Don’t Students Like School?: A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom by Daniel T. Willingham ★★★★
• Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. David Shields by David Shields ★★★★
• Does the 21st Century Belong to China?: Kissinger and Zakaria vs. Ferguson and Li by Henry Kissinger ★★★
• Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School by John Medina ★★★
• Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert ★★★
• 21st Century Dodos: A Collection of Endangered Objects by Steve Stack ★★★
• Crossworld: One Man’s Journey into America’s Crossword Obsession by Marc Romano ★★★
• The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined by Salman Khan ★★★
• Pound Foolish: Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry by Helaine Olen ★★★
• The New Tycoons: Inside the Trillion Dollar Private Equity Industry That Owns Everything by J. Kelly ★★ (my review)
• The Fair Tax Book by Neal Boortz ★★

Fiction (Series):

• The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall ★★★
• The Case of the Haunted Husband by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Doomsday Key: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins ★★★★
• The Skeleton Key (Sigma Force, #6.5) by James Rollins ★★

Fiction (Non-Series):

Total: ~7022 pages

Non-Fiction:

• On the Origin of Tepees by Jonnie Hughes ★★★★
• Automate This: How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World by Christopher Steiner ★★★★
• The History of the World in Bite-Sized Chunks by Emma Marriott ★★★

Fiction (Series):

• The Case of the Caretaker’s Cat by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Stuttering Bishop by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Dangerous Dowager by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Lame Canary by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Substitute Face by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Shoplifter’s Shoe by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Perjured Parrot by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★
• The Case of the Rolling Bones by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Silent Partner by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Baited Hook by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• Black Order: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins ★★★
• The Judas Strain: A Sigma Force Novel by James Rollins ★★★
• The Last Oracle (Sigma Force, #5) by James Rollins ★★

Fiction (Non-Series):

Total: ~5233 pages

Non-Fiction:

• Cathar Castles: Fortresses of the Albigensian Crusade 1209-1300 by Marcus Cowper ★★
• Henry VIII’s Wives: History in an Hour by Julie Wheeler ★★
• The Perfect Heresy by Stephen O’Shea ★★★★
• The Pope Who Quit: A True Medieval Tale of Mystery, Death, and Salvation by Jon M. Sweeney ★★

Somewhat of a history theme this month. I spent several weeks at the end of December and the start of January driving around Pays Cathare, and with my interest suitably piqued, I sought out some reading for a more detailed background. The first, part of the Osprey Fortress series, was an interesting introduction, and would probably have been better to read before my trips, but The Perfect Heresy was much more engaging. (Update: The Pope Who Quit turned out to be an eerily prescient read!)

Fiction (Series):

• The Baxter Trust (Steve Winslow #1) by Parnell Hall (as J.P. Hailey) ★★★★
• The Anonymous Client (Steve Winslow #2) by Parnell Hall (as J.P. Hailey) ★★★★
• The Underground Man (Steve Winslow #3) by Parnell Hall (as J.P. Hailey) ★★★★
• The Naked Typist (Steve Winslow #4) by Parnell Hall (as J.P. Hailey) ★★★★
• The Wrong Gun (Steve Winslow #5) by Parnell Hall (as J.P. Hailey) ★★★
• The Innocent Woman (Steve Winslow #6) by Parnell Hall (as J.P. Hailey) ★★★★
• In the Midst of Death (Matthew Scudder #2) by Lawrence Block ★★★
• Time to Murder and Create (Matthew Scudder #3) by Lawrence Block ★★★
• A Stab in the Dark (Matthew Scudder #4) by Lawrence Block ★★★
• Eight Million Ways to Die (Matthew Scudder #5) by Lawrence Block ★★★★
• When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (Matthew Scudder #6) by Lawrence Block ★★
• Detective (Stanley Hastings Mystery #1) by Parnell Hall ★★☆
• Gone (Gone #1) by Michael Grant ★☆
• Bloodline (Sigma Force #8) by James Rollins ★★★★
• Sandstorm (Sigma Force #1) by James Rollins ★★☆
• Map of Bones (Sigma Force #2) by James Rollins ★★★★
• The Inimitable Jeeves (Jeeves #2) by P.G. Wodehouse ★★★★
• The Case of the Sulky Girl (Perry Mason #2) by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★★
• The Case of the Lucky Legs (Perry Mason #3) by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★
• The Case of the Counterfeit Eye (Perry Mason #6) by Erle Stanley Gardner ★★★

The Steve Winslow series was a quick fun read. The books are heavily modelled after Perry Mason, so after trying another series by the same author (and not really liking it so much), I decided to read my way through the original Mason books instead. After loving Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr and Evan Tanner series, I’ve moved on to the Matthew Scudder books. These are much darker, and I’ll probably keep going with the series, but I’m not in as much of a hurry as I was with the two lighter series. The Sigma Force books are a slightly-more-intelligent-and-better-written-than-Dan-Brown scientists-with-guns conspiracy-theory-ahoy rompfest. They’re a little over-long at the start, but the pacing gets better as the series progresses.

Fiction (Non-Series):

• Jammy Dodger by Kevin Smith ★★★★
• Essays in Love by Alain de Botton ★★★
• Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean ★★★★
• The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren ★★★★
• The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up by Jacob M. Appel ★★

Jammy Dodger is a fun tale of ’80s Belfast that likely wouldn’t be quite so appealing to those who didn’t live through it. It’s slightly difficult to know whether Essays In Love should be in the Fiction or Non-Fiction category. Like most of de Botton’s books it’s full of interesting insights and quotable phrases, but is rather patchy. Not the End of the World is a fascinating re-telling of the Noah’s Ark myth that asks a lot of usually-ignored questions of the story. I suspect The Brothers Lionheart would have received five stars had I read it when I was much younger. The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up starts off well, but then completely loses it.

Abandoned unfinished:

• You Want WHAT??? by Mariann Mohos
• Another Man’s Wife Plus 3 Other Tales of Horror by David Bernstein
• The List of 7 by Mark Frost

Not yet finished:

• Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The White Man’s Burden by William Easterly
• The Horologicon by Mark Forsyth
• On the Origin of Tepees by Jonnie Hughes
• Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine
• This Will Make You Smarter edited by John Brockman
• The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton

Total: ~9,589 pages

When you don’t know very much about a subject, you don’t know in advance what to measure. So your early experiments are not what they might seem to be—they are not to measure things, but to determine what can be measured and what can be worth measuring. The difference here is well exemplified by the difference between the methodologists of anthropology and sociology. The sociologist is working in his own culture, about which he assumes that he is sufficiently knowledgeable to construct, say, a questionnaire as a measuring instrument. But the anthropologist cannot use a questionnaire because he does not know what questions will be meaningful in another culture. Roughly, then, we might say that the sociologist is looking for answers, and the anthropologist is looking for questions.
…
The social science that provides us with the most useful overall model for computer programming is anthropology. With a little artistic license and stretching of the imagination, we could imagine computer programmers as having a culture—a shared set of beliefs and activities which shape their day-to-day activities. In our study of programming, we shall first examine the “social structure” of that culture— the way programmers relate to one another and to other people who are not programmers. We shall find some surprising possibilities for improvement in this area over present practices, more even than in the second area of study—programming as an individual activity.

— Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming, Chapter 3

No doubt there are programs that are used once and then thrown away. No doubt there are even more programs that should be thrown away before ever being used. Nonetheless, the great majority of programs that are written, especially by professional programmers, remain in existence for a definite life span. And during that span, most of them become modified.

Few programmers of any experience would contradict the assertion that most programs are modified in their lifetime. Why, then, when we are forced to modify programs do we find it such a Herculean task that we often decide to throw them away and start over? Reading programs gives us some insight, for we rarely find a program that contains any evidence of having been written with an eye to subsequent modification. But this is only a symptom, not a disease. Why, we should ask, do programmers, who know full well that programs will inevitably be modified, write programs with no thought to such modifications? Why, indeed, do their programs sometimes look as if they had been devilishly contrived to resist modification—protected like the Pharaoh’s tomb against all intruders?

— — Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming, Chapter 2

Answers on a postcard, please!

A young novelist of our time was recently asked who were this favorite authors. He responded simply that he never read novels, as his ideas were so new and superior to anyone else’s that reading would only be a waste of his time. As you might expect, his work did not support his thesis. Perhaps the same could be said for some of our radical young programmers. Perhaps there is something to be gained from reading other people’s programs—if only the amusement engendered by their bad examples. Perhaps if we want to understand how programmers program—to lift the veil of the programming mystique—we could fruitfully begin by seeing what is to be learned from the reading of programs.

— Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming, Chapter 1

The meme that programming is a write-only skill is one that recurs from time to time. With relatively little software these days needing to be highly optimised, and developer time orders of magnitude more expensive than hardware, the dictum that software should be written primarily for humans to understand, and only secondarily for machines, is truer than ever. The context, and examples, in this book are rather quaint and almost humorous now (like noting that now that programmers actually work at a terminal they can just see what code does rather than having to read it offline).

But there is a great psychological point raised here too that I’ve never heard anyone talk about before and still holds as true today. Often in a software project, things are implemented in a clumsy, awkward, or otherwise non-standard manner. A lot of time this is because the programmer was unaware of the better way to do things, or needed to get on to working on other things as soon as the code “worked”, without having time to tidy it up. But sometimes there was as a good reason for the approach at the time it was written that is no longer true now (to work a limitation in a library being used that has long since been fixed, for example). If it’s in a relatively stable area of the codebase, it can languish there in that form for many years, until one day, needing to make a change nearby, a junior programmer will come in, see what to them is a needlessly complex part of code and congratulate themselves for knowing more than the programmer who originally wrote this nonsense. It’s not unusual, however, for that other programmer to now be their boss, and subtly contribute to building an unhealthy relationship there.

This book has only one major purpose—to trigger the beginning of a new field of study: computer programming as a human activity, or in short, the psychology of computer programming. There are, by various estimates, hundreds of thousands of programmers working today. Each of them could be functioning more efficiently, with greater satisfaction, if he and his manager would only learn to look upon the programmer as a human being, rather than another one of the machines.

At the moment, programming—sophisticated as it may be from an engineering or mathematic point of view—is so crude psychologically that even the tiniest insights should help immeasurably.

— Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming, Preface

This book was originally published in 1971. A decade ago there was a “Silver Anniversary Edition” published with additional commentary by the author from a perspective of 25 years on, but I don’t have that version; here I’m working from the original text.

There are very few computing-related books that are still relevant almost 40 years on. Hardware and software have changed beyond recognition multiple times, with the steady drive of Moore’s Law leading to computers that are a hundred million times more powerful. Many of today’s young programmers can barely conceive of a time before Google was the first port of call when something went wrong, never mind when computer time itself was so expensive that you had to do all your programming on paper, and, when you were ready, give it to an operator who would load it in for you and let you know the result! At the time this book was written, the debate was still raging over whether the new fangled approach of letting programmers actually work directly at the computer led them to grow lazy and adopt careless and inefficient work habits.

However, although the technical references in this book are often so dated they’re almost unintelligible, the observations on the human side of programming are still scarily accurate. Update the code snippets from FORTRAN to Ruby and the casual reader wouldn’t even realise for large chunks of the book that it wasn’t written last year. The reviews of the Silver Anniversary Edition seem almost to think this is a good thing, as it means the book is still relevant. To me it’s a hugely scary thing. How can we have learned so little in forty years? We should be looking back in horror at how programming was managed then, and the stories should sound as archaic as the technology.

In many ways, then, this book was a failure. The psychological aspects of programming are still poorly understood. Weinberg himself has developed many of the ideas much further in later works (such as the excellent Quality Software Management series), but these are even less widely read. But that doesn’t mean it should be abandoned. It’s every bit as important now as it was then, and the underlying promise quoted above still holds true: “even the tiniest insights should help immeasurably”.

Thomas Watson Sr. was one of the extraordinary people in business history. The company he created – IBM – is testimony to his exceptional capabilities as an entrepreneur, visionary, and manager.

Interestingly, when people think of the creation of IBM, and the global behemoth it became, their thoughts turn first to the company’s technological prowess. Although technology is certainly important to the IBM story, it was not really the most critical driver of the company’s growth under Watson’s tenure. The great man himself recognized that when he made the remarkable (for its insight and simplicity) observation – stated in a number of ways to IBMers – that nothing happens until someone sells something

— Mark Stevens, Your Marketing Sucks, Chapter 2