August 12, 2003
Patterns of Software Online

Richard Gabriel's Patterns of Software is now available for free online [via lambda the ultimate].

I liked this book a lot, and there are three things from it that I often remember or think about:

  1. Object orientation is code compression (not much different from Paul Graham saying that object orientation is a way to write spaghetti code).
  2. Starting a company with friends inevitably leads to an end to friendship.
  3. Smart people fail. A lot.

(These might not be exactly accurate, but they're what I remember).

Posted by jjwiseman at August 12, 2003 12:10 AM
Comments

I can certainly relate to number 2 on that list. The friendships that weren't outright destroyed in the process of running a company together took a massive toll. And a cooling off period of over a year before any of us could really talk to each other again (after the dot-crash implosion).

And that was infrastructure consulting, I don't even want to think about how nasty things could have gotten were it more development oriented.

Posted by: David Mercer on August 12, 2003 01:15 PM

I ordered that book a couple months ago. Reading about his incredibly depressing life made me think of this odd link someone mentioned.
http://free.freespeech.org/kaosroolz/blah-025_a_social_violence_manifesto.txt

Posted by: Tayss on August 13, 2003 05:46 AM

Actually, Paul Graham suggests in the notes in "ANSI Common Lisp" that OO in Lisp is a worthwhile way to "structure spaghetti" but he does say that OO can often be avoided if you are creating something new where OO isn't absolutely necessary. How you ever say OO is needed or not is beyond my understanding, but what the hey.

Posted by: Smug Canadian on August 19, 2003 11:29 AM
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