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Bookshelf

Random pieces I enjoyed reading.



Software design



These are on the top of my list. Cooper’s book is great for learning about the process of developing software in general. Philip’s book is about web sites, and since all interesting program in the next few years will be web sites, it’s equally relevant. Scott McCloud’s book is about the combined visual and written language used in cartoons. As it turns out, these are the same elements available to most software. Finally, there’s Tufte, with his excellent, intelligent approach to information design in general, also highly relevant to software.





  • The inmates are running the asylum by Alan Cooper explains the right process for developing software that’s useful to users. Too bad it isn’t free (even though you’d expect Cooper to make enough money from his job to refrain from the few bucks earned from a book).



  • Philip and Alex’s Guide to Web Publishing by Philip Greenspun


    What Philip thinks web publishing is all about, and also technical help on how to do it in real life. There’s a whole lot of interesting reads scattered around his whole website, so dig around.





  • <a href=”http://www.scottmccloud.com/objects/uc/uc.html”>Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Boy, I wish someone would write an introductory computer science textbook with Scott.



  • Visual Explanations by <a href=”http://www.cs.yale.edu/people/faculty/tufte.html”>Edward Tufte. Also read his other books, they’re all worth it.



Free Software





  • Why Software Should Not Have Owners by Richard Stallman


    Stallman, from MIT, is the guy that started the whole thing. Most of the articles in the philosophy section are worth reading.



  • The Right to Read by Richard Stallman


    A piece of prose depicting where we may be headed.





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