is an excellent book by Jerry Weinberg.
As usual I'm going to quote from a few pages:
I've read this book twice before, once here, and again here.
We must deal with one other problem, which is important because of a seldom questioned view of programming - a view which this book will spend a great deal of time questioning. That view is that programming is an individual activity.
Now that hardware has grown cheaper whilst labor has grown more expensive, group members are much less likely to share a machine and system than there were years ago.
The requirement to develop capability cannot be met adequately by a single person. We learn much faster and much better with the active cooperation of others.
Has anyone ever thought of asking appplicants whether or not they like programmming?
With adults, however, the barriers to learning have usually become internalized, and the average adult learns very little of left to his own devices.
It is a well-known psychological principle that in order to maximize the rate of learning, the subject must be fed back information on how well or poorly he is doing.
Such companies are sitting ducks for anyone who comes along with a fancy package of promises - and with lots of sitting ducks, can the hunters be far behind?
An increase in salary only motivates for a short time it is the raise, not the salary level which is a symbol of current value.
To a surprising degree, the only time we fail to learn is when there are negative forces set up against it.
Because the machines are rigid, the people who use them must, if they are to be successful, supply more than their share of flexibility.
We are trying to make the machine help people take advantage of the immense psychological resources they have in overcoming their immense psychological shortcomings.
