I. M. Wright's "Hard Code"

by Eric Brechner

Get the brutal truth about coding, testing, and project management from a Microsoft insider who tells it like it is. I. M. Wright's deliberately provocative column "Hard Code" has been sparking debate... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735624356
• ISBN13: 9780735624351
• Release Date: September 2007
• Publisher: Microsoft Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.4" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Opinions and Attitudes

I.M. Wright (Eric Brechner) fills the book with his opinions and attitudes with more than 20 years of development experience. I found many of his opinions and attitudes right on the mark, others I wasn't sure I agreed with, but I found the book an excellent read. It was interesting reading opinions that date back as far as 2001. More times than not we look at experts' opinions from almost 10 years ago you find that their opinions are way off the mark. This is not the case with I.M. Wright. There are things in the book that even the author looking back has decided wasn't the best idea. But more times than not, what the author said in the early 2000s apply today. I really enjoyed his 2002 column entitled "Six Sigma? Oh please!". Because the author was working in the real world you don't get a lot of theory or how things should be, but how thing are, real and unfair. He will defend developers and managers when he thinks they need defending, then turn around and chastised them when he thinks they deserve the criticism. I was a little surprised that while working for large organization and these columns were printed internally in the company, the author did not hesitate to criticize the way management operated. This is not a boring book. The author has strong opinions, attitudes and does not hesitate to express them on the pages. It is fun to read someone's rants and his justifications for these rants. I'm sure everyone will find something they agreed with and something they will not.

Fun to read for programmers too

This is more of book about devs than coding, but it's fun to read if one works as devs, or "journey developers". From mere coding perspective, although this is only touched at high level, both chapter 5 and chapter 6 are inspiring and worth the money of the book, it basically tells that code quality can be predicted and improved, like wise, error handling, duplicated, shared code and data are some of the areas that call for great attention. The book has been translated into my native language already, but the title is a little misleading, it literally means "The Way of Coding".

Worth Every Page

This wonderful book by Eric Brechner analyzes from the inside of Microsoft the dynamics of Software Development, Organization, Project & People Management, Software Design, Development & Quality. To every harsh criticism, he offers some very interesting and yet simple advice. That doesn't mean that Eric is always "WRight", but he certainly has a good point, and it will make you think and see things in a different light. I strongly recommend it to anybody in a IT profession, specially to managers!

The Unofficial Microsoft Software Development Playbook

"Hard Code" is a brilliant read for any software developer, architect, manager, etc. It is a candid interpretation of the politics inside Microsoft and the relationships across various roles in the development process. This might sound a little boring, but no--this guy goes for the throat. In understanding that everyone has a specific job to do--and their objectives often oppose those of everyone else--he accurately and bluntly exposes common points of conflict. More importantly, he gives hard-won, actionable advice on how to cut through all that crap and put everyone on the same page. For managers and architects, this book [namely chapter 1: "Project Mismanagement"] would be a great supplement to two books of Julie Bick's that also offer unique insight: All I Really Need to Know In Business I Learned at Microsoft and The Microsoft Edge. Another interesting point in this book was the article, "Google: Serious threat or poor spelling?" Here he actually points out the flaws with Google's business strategy and gives tips on how they [or any company] could overcome their weaknesses to become a true competitor to Microsoft. It's not like he gives up Windows source code here, but don't be surprised if you get a bit anxious reading it...just waiting for FBI agents to break down your door for accessing coveted insider trade secrets.