Tag Archives: books

What if? 2

Following on from XKCD, “What if?,” and “How to” comes Randal Munroe’s “What if? 2.” It’s another collection of silly questions with scientific, humorous answers. Examples include “Could you eat a cloud?” and “How far could you see if you had an eye as big as the earth?”

It’s as simple as this: if you liked those books, you’ll like this one.

“Incineration of organic matter within it” is a bad feature for an umbrella.

If I have a criticism, it’s that it feels like it’s playing by numbers at this point. All the same ingredients are there. I did enjoy it — I genuinely laughed out loud at parts of it — but it’s not as fresh and original as, well, the original. Is this the fate of all sequels?

Atrocity Archive

I’m not sure that I can explain why it took me so long to read this Charlie Stross book. Some of the references to nineties computing tech dated it a little, but no more than Douglas Adams’ obsession with digital watches. The characters are pretty good, as is the writing. It strays into the mystical, magical world but there was always a logic underpinning the world. (The lack of “logic” in many fantasy books is one of the reasons I generally prefer sci-fi.)

In that sense, I don’t know what to conclude. I quite enjoyed it but the fact that it took me a year to read surely says something?

How Westminster Works… and why it doesn’t

If there’s one good thing that has come out of the whole Brexit omnishambles, it’s that my understanding of how British politics works has dramatically increased. I don’t think it’s worth the cost, but understanding how laws are debated and passed is something that should be taught in schools, but isn’t.

Brexit taught me about Proroguing Parliament and the various readings of bills. I learned of the role that committees serve and the works that the Lords do. It made me do homework to find out what a “three line whip” is.

My piecemeal approach to understanding the whole was interesting, but delegating the hard work of structuring it into a cohesive whole was worth it. Thanks, Ian Dunt.

This isn’t a balanced, academic treatise. Rather, it’s pitched as how it doesn’t work with an epilogue suggesting solutions to the worst problems. The writing is energetic, angry even, but clear and structured. This energy is what keeps the book entertaining, in what could have been a dry subject matter.

If you’re familiar with his podcasting work, you might be disappointed by the lack of swearing. If so, make sure you read the acknowledgements. There’s no bad language, but the vignette with his dog is illuminating.

Range

I’m biased. As Mulder did, I want to believe. Except, I want to believe that being a generalist can work. And that’s what “Range,” by David Epstein, claims. It’s subtitle is, “How generalists triumph in a specialised world.”

It’s not a challenging read. There is a lot of anecdata, examples of people who took a broad path and still succeeded. In that sense, maybe it’s like “Quiet,” which is about introverts. It doesn’t tell you how to succeed, only that it’s possible and that you’re not alone. Maybe that’s enough?

In that sense, it’s not a game changer for me. But there are some good lines in it, some scenarios that I could relate to. For example, I like this:

As education pioneer John Dewey put it in Logic, The Theory of Inquiry, “a problem well put is half-solved.”

This is absolutely my experience. The process of asking a well formed question often leads to the answer. I have started asking questions on Stack Overflow countless times but I’ve asked only twenty-one questions in the fourteen years I’ve been on the site.

I also like this, which I read as an argument for diverse teams.

“When all members of the laboratory have the same knowledge at their disposal, then when a problem arises, a group of similar minded individuals will not provide more information to make analogies than a single individual,” Dunbar concluded.

It’s no good to have a team where you have a lone genius and a bunch of grunts. It’s much better to have a team of differently smart people who can learn from each other; I can “trade” my deeper knowledge in one area for your experience in another. It seems that it’s not just good for the individuals but for the team, and possible society as a whole, too.

I come across this a lot:

The best forecasters view their own ideas as hypothesis in need of testing. Their aim is not to convince their teammates of their own expertise, but to encourage their teammates to help them falsify their own notions.

I share some half-formed theory or idea, with the expectation that other people find the holes and tell me how much of an idiot I am. I am then surprised when people take them as a finished item and run with them.

Generalists … believe employers will view their varied background as a liability, so they downplay it.

And this is certainly me. Employers are almost always looking for a very specific list of requirements and often see detours in an unfavourable light. I found that including my iPhone development activities on my CV sometimes worked against me, for example.

I’ve started to “own” my background much more recently. It becomes self-selecting. The companies that don’t value that extra experience won’t want to hire me, but nor would I want to work for them. A win for us both.

Back to the book. In the end, it’s a fine but not an essential read.

Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering

I’ll be honest: I wanted to like “Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering” by Robert L. Glass more than I did. I’m not sure if it’s dated badly — it’s from 2002 — or I was in the wrong frame of mind, or something else, but it just didn’t work for me.

The book is structured as a list of facts grouped around areas such as “Management” and “Requirements.” For each fact, there is a discussion, the controversy, and then the sources and references. The writing aims to be friendly, but I found it a bit grating1.

Going back through the fifty-five facts and fallacies, I find that I agree with the majority of them2. Twenty years on from the original version, I suspect that some are less controversial than when it was originally published. There is some degree of (justified) scepticism about the newfangled “agile” process, which is now largely standard across the industry. Yet it’s also reassuring how little other things have changed. There is still little transfer between academia and industry. Quality continues to be a hot-button topic. And software maintenance rarely gets the love it deserves.

I’ve seen this book described as a classic, so maybe I’m missing something. There are many books I would suggest you read first. In the end, I didn’t like the writing, and I think that there are too few original insights in too many words.


  1. This is such a subjective thing. I think the objective in was modesty or self-deprecation, but it came across as boasting. ↩︎
  2. I’m resisting the temptation to argue against those that I don’t agree with. ↩︎

Radical Candor

“Radical Candor” is one of those phrases that I’ve heard and wondered about. Is it another vacuous management phrase? Does it mean anything? I saw it in the library and thought I’d find out. I’m cynical about these things but it doesn’t mean I’m closed minded!

The pitch is “Be a kick-ass boss without losing your humanity” which sounds positive but I don’t manage people at work. Even if it contained genuine insight, would there be anything I could use?

The book starts with a description of what “Radical Candor1” is and finishes with how to apply the theory, an approach that I prefer to “How To Win Friends and Influence People” where the story is scattered throughout the text.

The examples vary in how useful or relatable they are. Some I was nodding with recognition. Others were some way out of my experience.

There’s an example early on where the author says “Um” too much in a meeting and her boss immediately offers a speech coach.

How many people get that experience?

I’ve never been offered a coach, not even when my failings have been much more significant than the occasional “Umm”! Have I been working for the wrong companies or have I been in the wrong jobs?

I guess the idea is that if someone who name-drops half of Silicon Valley can use “Radical Candor,” then so can you.

But much of the rest of the book did work for me. The idea of building trust and then providing rapid, honest feedback seems (self evidently?) like a good thing. I could imagine past conversations where I could apply the advice. I understood some cases where I’d done a good job; others where I’d missed.

I don’t think you need to be in a management position for this book to be useful. Anyone in a job where there’s an element of leadership might get something from it.

Do you need to go on a training course or read the full book to get the gist? Unlikely. But is there some value here? Absolutely.


  1. I’m going to use the American spelling as that’s the name of the book, but I can’t say I’m happy about it. ↩︎