Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

Many people in the computer industry don’t understand how we got here. Well, maybe not here. Due to the passage of time, it would be how we got to the mid-nineties.

This book [affiliate link] does not pretend to be objective or complete, but talks about both the technology and the people that got us from the invention of transistors to Windows PC. What I love about it is that it focuses on the people rather than the technology, yet still manages to put the technology into perspective. The writing is also very chatty and full of character. So much tech history is stodgy or dull or inaccurate. Empires is none of those things.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

At some point I realised I would never be a great programmer. It’s possible that point came when I read this book, where Bentley [affiliate link[ iterates on a number of problems, gradually improving them. Maybe I couldn’t do what the author does, but it’s a fascinating, well written journey.

Part of the Twenty Books in Twenty Days series.

I was given the first edition of Code Complete [affiliate link] in a training course in my first job, post-university. My Computer Science degree covered a number of sophisticated but impractical techniques for software engineering, the most memorable being testing. By comparison, Code Compete was incredibly refreshing. Its advice is practical and pragmatic, yet based on solid research and experience. It also rarely says “this is the way” to do something. Instead, it will list the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches. I treat with suspicion anyone who advocates for One True Way to do something.

“Make Something Wonderful,” a collection of Steve Jobs writing and photos is… well, it’s a good thing that I write these notes for myself. You’ll already know if you’re interested.

I’m not sure there’s much new and undiscovered here, but it’s nicely collated and fascinating reading.

One highlight is the script from his Stanford commencement speech. But what I enjoyed most were the notes. The speech was almost perfect, but the notes allow you to see the process that led there. The common perception of the lone genius having a eureka moment is a lie. Jobs worked and practiced and iterated and sought feedback. Much of his work he attempted to make everything look simple and obvious, but the reality is that ‘effortless’ takes a lot of hard preparatory work. Some might argue that this detracts from his achievements, but I’d say that the exact opposite is true.

I met a man once. He was tall and dark, with straight hair in parting on his left side. His smooth, fair skin contrasted with his choice of a dark, tailored suit. He rarely wore a tie, but in a small concession to whimsy his cuff links bore small images of Daffy Duck. When anyone noticed, he’d laugh it off, saying they were a gift from his youngest.

If I took this book to heart, I should try to convince you to read it.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d like this book, and I mainly took it out of the library so I could make the joke in the first paragraph (and others like it). I mean, negotiation isn’t my job. I’m not, like the author, a hostage negotiator. I’m not even in sales. The key, of course, is that we all have to negotiate from time to time. While I may not often have to negotiate money in my day job, I do have to agree on the scope of work. This is a form of negotiation. We all have to buy stuff or hire someone to deal with jobs around the house.

Jared Diamond’s door-stop of a book has been on my to-read list for quite some time. Maybe not quite since it was released over twenty years ago but probably not far from it.

The gist is pretty much there in the title: in the last 13,000 years, the most successful societies used guns, germs and steel to conquer others. Why, for example, was it Europeans who had world-wide empires rather than Africans or Americans or Chinese?

It’s been an interesting year. Half way through 2018 I started working from home basically full time. While that may not sound like it’s relevant, my time on the Tube was my “reading time.”

What I’m saying is: I didn’t reach my twelve book target this year.

I need to do better, allow myself to carve out some dedicated time as I did for exercise. Looking back over my list, I also want to read more fiction. I enjoy novels too much to only read one in a year!

I didn’t mean to immediately buy Hans Rosling’s “Factfulness“. I saw it in a “recommended reads” list (both Bill Gates and Barak Obama suggested it, if I remember correctly), thought it sounded interesting and went to Amazon to add it to my wish list. Fat fingers meant that I tapped the “buy” button instead.

Anyway. As an antidote to all the bad news around at the moment, I decided to read it right away. The narrative that the world is getting worse by many measures, this book argues, is false. I want to believe that we’re progressing but the pictures on TV of Trump and Brexit, famine and war make it hard to accept.