Extra-curricula Reading

Some interesting reading on languages and software engineering...

• The Rise of "Worse is Better" by Dick Gabriel.
• Software Runs the World: How Scared Should We Be That So Much of It Is So Bad?, by James Kwak
• Notes from the Mystery Machine Bus by Steve Yegge.
• No Silver Bullet — Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering by Fred Brooks (Note: you can freely download the pdf if you follow the link while on campus, thanks to ANU's subscription to the IEEE, otherwise you must pay).
• The five orders of ignorance by Phillip Armour (Note: you can freely download the pdf if you follow the link while on campus, thanks to ANU's subscription to the ACM, otherwise you must pay).
• Software Project Failure Costs Billions. Better Estimation & Planning Can Help, Dan Galorath. This article sumarizes some previously published estimates on the costs and causes of software failure.
• A Lucid Interval, Brian Hayes' analysis of the software failure of the Patriot missle system.
• There's an interview here with a leading aviation expert. It's lengthy, so search for the word "software" within the article.
• "Grunt and point", is all you need to do to communicate with pair programming, according to Kent Beck.
• Wired ran a fascinating article on stuxnet. Aside from being an interesting story, it throws a spotlight on the challenges of cybersecurity.