Software evangelists

For as long as I've been working as a programmer, I've been reading as much as I can about the subject. Not just coding, and new technologies, but management methods, creative processes, and how to get the best out of a team of programmers / designers / marketeers etc. Out of all of the publications I've read, and online blogs and articles, one man stands head and shoulders above the rest. His writing style is wonderful - never too dry, yet incredibly insightful and concise. His name is Joel Spolsky, and he has been writing a blog all about software development for many years called joelonsoftware.com. Now, I know that many people have already heard about Mr Spolsky, but I'm conscious of the fact that many new graduates outside of the US won't. Do yourself a big favour, and get stuck into the articles on this blog - especially the story of how netscape went from being the biggest browser vendor on the planet, to being absolutely unknown. joel's 12 point test for effective software teams is amazing, and honestly a bit scary. Apparently, Microsoft pass this test on all 12 points every day,whereas the last company I worked for barely scraped 3 out of 12, and while I'm getting Pendragon Interactive off the ground, we probably arent doing any better. (obviously I hope we will improve this score greatly once we are into our own offices, with a couple of support staff on board). Anyway, read joelonsoftware.com today, and then read it again tommorrow my young Padawan.