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A review by scottshepard
Team Geek: A Software Developer's Guide to Working Well with Others by Ben Collins-Sussman, Brian W. Fitzpatrick
3.0
“Software is easy. People are hard."
We like to think of our jobs as very logical and straightforward. Define the problem, find the right tool, fix the problem. But in reality almost all software is built by teams. Besides git and latex, all popular tools and every corporation is created by many hands touching different pieces of the machinery. Even if every person on the team has the best intentions, everything can fail if the proper steps to building and maintaining the team structure are not taken.
What I like about this book is it is written for the average team member. It’s not about how to start or manage a software team. It’s not about how to hire for one, it is about how to exist in one. The real message is how to work with any team as any of the excellent advice given here (excluding the rare software specific advice and anecdotes) can apply to any team. There are some great lessons in this book, some cliche but many not. It was refreshing to not only get the standard advice such as, “Respect each other”, but sound practical day-to-day experience as to what that means. I learned that to these authors (who worked at Google and helped develop subversion) it means that you assume the best in people, and address problem behaviors instead of problem people. I found much of the advice sounds and not condensing. I have already taken some of it to heart.
We like to think of our jobs as very logical and straightforward. Define the problem, find the right tool, fix the problem. But in reality almost all software is built by teams. Besides git and latex, all popular tools and every corporation is created by many hands touching different pieces of the machinery. Even if every person on the team has the best intentions, everything can fail if the proper steps to building and maintaining the team structure are not taken.
What I like about this book is it is written for the average team member. It’s not about how to start or manage a software team. It’s not about how to hire for one, it is about how to exist in one. The real message is how to work with any team as any of the excellent advice given here (excluding the rare software specific advice and anecdotes) can apply to any team. There are some great lessons in this book, some cliche but many not. It was refreshing to not only get the standard advice such as, “Respect each other”, but sound practical day-to-day experience as to what that means. I learned that to these authors (who worked at Google and helped develop subversion) it means that you assume the best in people, and address problem behaviors instead of problem people. I found much of the advice sounds and not condensing. I have already taken some of it to heart.