Burk on Books - 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

A little less than a year ago I told you about "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know," a ground-breaking book O'Reilly had just published. I was very excited about the book for two reasons. The first is that the contents were contributed by experts from around the world under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, which means it's kind of an open source book. The second thing is that I wrote two of the 97 things chosen to be in the book.

If you read that post then you might share my feeling of deja-vu when I tell you that in a couple of weeks O'Reilly will publish a new "97 Things" book. This one is titled "97 Things Every Programmer Should Know" and once again I wrote two of the 97 things appearing in the book.

I'm hoping that programmers of all stripes will find the contents useful and interesting enough that it outsells the first book. If you'd like to take a sneak peek at the articles, they're available at the O'Reilly web site's 97 Things wiki.

If you like what you find there, please consider buying the book. No, I'm not suggesting you buy the book because I'm looking for a big royalty check. Remember the Creative Commons License I told you about? The only "payment" a contributing author gets is a free copy of the book. I want to boost sales for three reasons:

1. I think most developers will find it a valuable resource.
2. I think that good book sales will encourage O'Reilly to keep adding books to the series
3. I've got an idea for a 97 Things book I want to see in print.

If you do read the articles, please leave a comment here or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for your time and attention,

Burk Hufnagel

97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know hits #1 at Amazon

A few days ago, I shared with you my joy about a new book titled "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" which I co-authored with 52 other architects .

Even though it's only been available for a couple of weeks, the book is doing very well. In fact, Amazon's sales ranking currently shows it at #7 in Software Development, and #1 in Design & Architecture. It's also #1 in Surveying & Photogrammetry, but I think that's because the tags include the word "architect".

(Note: If you click on the slightly blurry image below, the link will show you the actual image from Amazon.com in all its glory.)

Burk In Books: 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know

There's a new book available from O'Reilly titled "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts" and though I'm very excited about it, I won't be reviewing it here. Actually, I'd like to post a review, but you probably would not trust it because I'm one of the "experts" who's "wisdom" was collected for the book.

The book is primarily a series of short articles on various topics that software architects deal with in the real world. All of the articles were contributed under the Creative Commons, Attribution 3, license - which means it's essentially an open source book. In fact, the 97 articles in the book are available online for free at the 97 Things web site. O'Reilly also has a preview available on their website so you can see the cover and what the articles look like in the actual book - unfortunately, my articles are toward the end of the book and the preview stops much earlier.

I recommend going to the web site and reading an article or three. If you like it consider buying a copy of the book. I say that not because I get royalties - I don't. Nor did I get paid for the initial writing. I'm suggesting you buy one or more copies because I want the book to succeed so O'Reilly will be encouraged to do more books in the same style; collecting contributions from community members who have something interesting to say and making them available.

The whole process of trying to come up with useful bits of information and explain them in an interesting way - before somebody else beat you to it was fun and challenging and I'd like to do it again. So please go take a look then come back and let me know what you think of it.

{Note to self: Come up with a good sign off line.} <- Yes I meant to leave that there. It's motivational. Burk