Dreaming in code
by Scott Rosenberg · first published 2007
64% recommend32% neutral4% critical
Why HN recommends it
Engrossing account of Mitch Kapor's Chandler project, showing why software projects drift, miss deadlines and fail. Suits programmers who want a cautionary postmortem and non-tech people trying to grasp development.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Their story takes us through a maze of dead ends and exhilarating breakthroughs as they and their colleagues wrestle not only with the abstraction of code but with the unpredictability of human behavior, especially their own. Along the way, we encounter black holes, turtles, snakes, dragons, axe-sharpening, and yak-shaving--and take a guided tour through the theories and methods, both brilliant and misguided, that litter the history of software development, from the famous "mythical man-month" to Extreme Programming. Not just for technophiles but for anyone captivated by the drama of inventio
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Favorites read in 2018: Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg. This book is, so far, the closest I've come to finding a "spiritual successor" to The Soul of a New Machine by Kidder. If you liked The Soul of a New Machine, or if you like watching…
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗I presume this was heavily downvoted because of the Rand. While I'm not a fan of her either, that's unfair: 1. Dreaming in Code and The Book of Why are excellent (I haven't read the other two), and 2. Rand makes some points that some people need to learn, even if I don't buy her whole worldview.
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗…His Dream House, one of the greatest engineering books of all time ;) they are nonetheless relatively predictable, and the more experienced the carpenter the fewer surprises you can expect. Now go read Dreaming in Code, which shows that even if you are Mitch "I Built Lotus" Kapor and you hire Andy "Mac OS 1.0" Hertzfeld your software project may fly straight into a wall: You may blow the schedule by a factor of five,…
on “Comfort with meaninglessness the key to good programmers” ↗Dreaming in Code is one of my favorite programming books, it documents the development history behind the very ambitious project Chandler. Highly recommended. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32475.Dreaming_in_Code
on “Thunderbird 68.0” ↗Chandler is the project featured in Scott Rosenberg’s book "Dreaming in Code" -- a thoroughly enjoyable book that explores why software development is so hard. The story ends a little too soon, after several years of experimentation, rewrites and failures. I wonder how they got…
on “The Chandler Project (personal information organizer)” ↗…out. Finally, there are a couple of books that might help whet his appetite for hacking, such as Levy's Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution or Kidder's The Soul of a New Machine or Rosenberg's Dreaming in Code.
on “Ask HN: Suggestions for a 14-yr old software-developer-in-training?” ↗…to run a growth company without venture capital. It's the ultimate bootstrap and find market fit and make bank story you'll likely ever read. ~ Later, you should also read Soul of a New Machine and Dreaming in Code for a less calvinball approach to software development.
on “The book that inspired the birth of reddit” ↗…the promises made in this specification are very interesting to me. To me as well. Reading the PDF, it reminds me of WinFS, which I worked on. (Though I don't remember WinFS's collaboration story.) Dreaming in Code [1] is a great book about Kapor's attempt to build such an open source platform, post-Notes. I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the problem space. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Dreaming-Code-Programmers-Transcenden...…
on “Original Spec for Lotus Notes (1984) [pdf]” ↗I would also suggest Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg as a kind-of sequel to this documentary. In the early 2000s, a lot of Netscape people (including a lot of people depicted here like Michael Toy, but notably not JWZ) joined the Open…
on “Code Rush – The Beginnings of Netscape and Mozilla (2000) [video]” ↗…easier/fun to build your own tool. It is possible to make money in FOSS, but you really have to get the business plan right from the beginning. It’s a hard business to be in. If you haven’t read it, “Dreaming in Code” by Scott Rosenberg is a great story about just how hard it is to make a successful FOSS project, even for experienced teams. It details all of the ups and downs of the Chandler project from the early…
on “An Overview of Docker Desktop Alternatives” ↗As a student, I read "Dreaming in Code" by Scott Rosenberg, which makes several references to this book. In it, they run into just about every conceivable problem a software project can encounter, which makes for a pretty fun read.
on “The Mythical Man-Month” ↗I am about half way through 'Dreaming in Code', Scott Rosenberg's story of the early days of Chandler. I thoroughly recommend the book so far. As soon as I saw this it felt like how OSAF might have started Chandler if they were starting out today,…
on “Geary: a beautiful modern open-source email client” ↗…customers and your competition. Nothing has helped me grow more than actually running a startup a couple of times. If you're just looking for startup-themed books, I'd honestly suggest Masters of Doom, Dreaming in Code, and Soul of a New Machine. Lean Startup if you're feeling trendy.
on “Ask HN: Best books you've read on how to start a startup?” ↗I'm reminded of the Chandler project, funded and directed by Mitch Kapor. The intention was Lotus Agenda, reimagined for the 21st century. But that didn't work out. See Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software by Scott Rosenberg. It's a very sad story. I loved Agenda, and Chandler had so much damn potential! So it goes.
on ““It’s done, there is no way back. We tried, we failed”” ↗Chandler is on that list! That's the failed PIM desktop software that Mitch Kapor financed as a hobby project and which was the subject of the book "Dreaming in Code"by Scott Rosenberg. Terrific book, shame about the software.
on “WxPython 4.0.0 Released” ↗