If architects built buildings the way programmers build programs, the first woodpecker to come along would destroy civilization.I don't think that I ever read the piece from which that was taken, but eventually I read The Psychology of Computer Programming, The Secrets of Consulting, Becoming a Technical Leader, and Perfect Software. Weinberg combined remarkable ability in programming with an equally unusual ability to listen to and hear what people were saying. My copies of The Secrets of Consulting and Becoming a Technical Leader I lent out about ten years ago and never got back, but I think of some of the precepts frequently. I believe that even persons with no interest in computing could read them with profit.
Weinberg died August 7. This sample of his writing includes a few precepts from The Secrets of Consulting.
(By the way, when I mentioned the programmers and architects analogy to an architect of my acquaintance, she said, "Oh, but that is the way architects build buildings." I hope she exaggerated.)
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