Not something specifically about software, but a tale that gets to the heart of what we do.
Which fictional story (book, movie, etc.) is the best allegory for software development?
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Oldest comments (60)
Back to the future, wildly wrong predictions, crazy tech and it seems to have no sense of timescales.
This is cheating, but "How to Fight a Hydra" by Josh Kaufman was written explicitly to be an allegory that is meant to describe "how to do hard things" (of which writing software definitely applies!)
It's meant to mimic the feel of a story from really old works (like the Odyssey, etc) but is significantly shorter, and much more to the point. I highly recommend it!
It's okay. I just listened to it on Audible a week or two ago. I expected to get a bit more out of it, but it's an interesting and quick read.
This is a book where I also think the audio book experience is probably different than the "in hand" reading experience as well. The way the book is laid out and split up adds to the experience I think, so that may be why it was an underwhelming audio book :)
"Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsig. It talks about the nature of "Quality", the beauty of craft, and the relationship between people and technology.
It's covered more in this context in the Greater than Code podcast episode: 123: BOOK CLUB! Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
ex-machina(movie) . Makes you wonder about what is ethical in AI and how we handle our interactions in future.
Not to mention that true AI - were one able to create what is essentially an artificial consciousness - isn't really ethically compatible with prior models of obsolescence. I mean, what do you do when your previous-generation AI has reached the end of its useful life? Is retiring it equivalent to killing something?
The Room.
I think this answer is self-explanatory.
Hackers. If your day-to-day doesn't resemble Crash Override's, you're doing something egregiously wrong.
...and you have a hard time not laughing at it.
I was going to say The Phoenix Project until I saw the qualifier. Instead, I think I'll go with My Side of the Mountain. The level of exploration and progressive improvement just captures so much of greenfield development.
Jurassic Park
"Must go faster!"
Well, if you accept some of the inanities of interacting with project managers and product owners as things that fall into this category, I've got one for ya:
Catch-22.
Book, 1970 movie adaptation or the recent Amazon Streaming adaptation? All three are absurd, but the 1970s adaptation is less grim than either the book or the Amazon version.
Ouch. That's a great question actually. I'm not sure if I'd call the recent Amazon adaptation necessarily grim, but it was definitely weighty especially towards the end.
But great question because I was having this exact debate with a coworker, I honestly don't know which adaptation I love more, they've both got a certain brilliance about them.
To me, the 1970 movie was too short to adequately make the transition from "merely absurd" to "grim". You don't have quite have that "litany of absurdities" feeling (especially if you binge the series) from the movie that you do in the streaming version.
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy...Always.