''Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software'' is a (2007)

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

literary

nonfiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

book by ''

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...

'' editor and journalist

Scott Rosenberg Scott Rosenberg (born April 24, 1963) is an American screenwriter, film producer, and actor. Life and career Rosenberg was born in Needham, Massachusetts, to a Jewish family. After high school graduation in 1981, he attended Boston Universit ...

. It documents the workers of

Mitch Kapor Mitchell David Kapor ( ; born November 1, 1950) is an American entrepreneur best known for his work as an application developer in the early days of the personal computer software industry, later founding Lotus, where he was instrumental in deve ...

Open Source Applications Foundation The Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF) was a non-profit organization founded in 2002 by Mitch Kapor whose purpose was to effect widespread adoption of free software/open-source software. History Founded in 2002 by Mitch Kapor to effect ...

as they struggled with collaboration and the software development task of building the open source calendar application

Chandler Chandler or The Chandler may refer to: * Chandler (occupation), originally head of the medieval household office responsible for candles, now a person who makes or sells candles * Ship chandler, a dealer in supplies or equipment for ships Arts ...

. Rosenberg spent time observing the organization at work and wrote about its milestones and problems. The book combines narrative with explanations of software development philosophy, methodology, and process, referring to ''

The Mythical Man-Month ''The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering'' is a book on software engineering and project management by Fred Brooks first published in 1975, with subsequent editions in 1982 and 1995. Its central theme is that adding manpower to a ...

'' and other texts of the field. In a review published in the ''

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

'',

James Fallows James Mackenzie Fallows (born August 2, 1949) is an American writer and journalist. He is a former national correspondent for ''The Atlantic.'' His work has also appeared in ''Slate'', ''The New York Times Magazine'', ''The New York Review of Book ...

compared the book to

Tracy Kidder John Tracy Kidder (born November 12, 1945) is an American writer of nonfiction books. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his ''The Soul of a New Machine'' (1981), about the creation of a new computer at Data General Corporation. He has receiv ...

's ''

The Soul of a New Machine ''The Soul of a New Machine'' is a non-fiction book written by Tracy Kidder and published in 1981. It chronicles the experiences of a computer engineering team racing to design a next-generation computer at a blistering pace under tremendous p ...

''. At the time of the book's publication, OSAF had not yet released Chandler 1.0. Chandler 1.0 was released on August 8, 2008.

References

External links

Official web site"Joel On Software" review of "Dreaming in Code"Author interview at Salon.com
Software development books {{compu-book-stub