Keep going

Isn't though. Hell of an astroturf campaign to sign up for slashdot that many years ago, using my real name, just to pimp a book now.

Sorry bud. I actually like it. A lot. On my desk right now.

It's easy as a technical employee -- developer, architect, administrator -- to know your job much better than your boss. Once you've reached that point, it's equally tempting to believe you know *more* than your boss, and to question why they insist on continuing to waste your time.

This book is an excellent first step in explaining what it is managers are supposed to be doing, and what it is that management is supposed to accomplish with the standard management tricks -- meetings, one-on-ones, reviews -- that can seem like such a waste of time when all you want to do is write good code. Even if you never want to go into management yourself, but especially if you do, it's worth reading.

Plus, the book is an easy, engaging read that makes a lot of sense even the first time through.

Highly recommended.

Of course, unlike 15 years ago...

• people watch and store videos and music on their computer -- sometimes simultaneously. (MIDIs don't count. )
• they use websites that have active content beyond animated "under construction" gifs (flash isn't just for pretty intros anymore -- it's critical to real interfaces and applications);
• they store and expect to quickly search through significantly more data (years and years of email, with attachments);
• the security environment has become much more complex (and that's not all Microsoft's fault);
• people use encryption (SSL and DRM, for example), without even noticing it;
• people run many more applications side-by-side... even if it's just two IM clients and a browser with a stack of open tabs;

And that's just the mythical "average user". Operating systems have to support more than the average user -- they have to support the guy writing apps for the average user (development and debugging have gotten significantly easier); the office of the average user (managing a large userbase); the folks writing content for the average user (both professionals and YouTube).

Many of these things are transparent. And, yeah, I could go back to using pine, bash, rxvt, and WindowMaker (although that's only 10 years ago, not 15), grep through my emails when I needed to find something and use IRC to talk to my friends.

But you know what? This is better. A lot better.