Book Review: "The Wikipedia Revolution"

"The Wikipedia Revolution" by Andrew Lih tells the short but enchanting story of Wikipedia: how the project conceived as a fairly regular for-profit web enterprise evolved into something dramatically different. In just a few short years after Nupedia creators embraced wiki-wiki-web and opened the site to everyone with a browser, Wikipedia grew to be one of the top 10 most visited sites on the Internet. It has unparalleled reach with its 259 supported languages, and at least 25 of these languages include over 100,000 articles. All of this has been achieved with essentially all-volunteer force from around the world.

There are some aspects of the book I didn't like very much. For example, it looks like the author has applied one of the Wikipedia editing principles: "No original research". All the information in the book is compiled from publicly available sources; there are no new interviews. Numerous biographies of geeks are rather boring, and most of the additional material about Linux, Free Software Foundation, Mozilla, etc. belongs in sidebars, not main text. (I was reading Chris Anderson's "Free" at the same time and it is amazing how much of that general material is echoed in both books.)

That being said, I am positive you will learn something new from "The Wikipedia Revolution" (unless you are a seasoned wikipedian, of course). Like the intricacies of maintaining three different scripts of the same language (check out Kazakh Wikipedia), for example. Or what roles in the organization are played by administrators and bots. Or what happened when someone googled the word "jew" and didn't like what he saw.

But in my opinion, the most interesting part discusses various controversies surrounding Wikipedia. How does a quality of articles produced by countless anonymous contributors compare with the quality of established encyclopedias, such as Britannica? How does the open system protect itself from vandalism and libel without becoming a closed system? How many articles is too much? (Does every high school need to have an entry? What about elementary schools?) Last but not least, what happened when it was revealed that a prominent Wikipedia contributor and administrator falsely pretended to be a university professor?

Enjoy the book!

Book Review: "Dreaming in Code"

I took my daughter to the library a couple of weeks ago. As we were walking toward the checkout line, I realized that I needed something to read, too, and looked at the books on the nearby "New Arrivals" stand. A title "Dreaming in Code" caught my attention. Brief look at the back cover confirmed that the book was indeed about software development. A non-technical book on software development written by a journalist? You don't see that every day. I borrowed "Dreaming in Code" from the library and I'm certainly glad I did.

After spending over a decade in the industry I knew from experience that most software projects are delivered either late, way over budget, or with significantly reduced features. I have read "The Mythical Man-Month" and understood that there are dark forces at play. Still, deep in my heart I believed that somehow somewhere exists a group of people that knows exactly how to avoid all common project pitfalls. Wouldn't it be great to learn who they are and how they do it?

Scott Rosenberg's book follows the life of one project launched in the heart of Silicon Valley by none other than Mitchell Kapor, creator of Lotus 1-2-3. The idea was to create a revolutionary personal information manager that would also be cross-platform and open-source. Kapor personally financed the venture, so there was no pressure from the "suits". Some of the brightest programmers started to work for Open Source Applications Foundation. And yet the project (code-named "Chandler") had its share of disappointments, delays, and trade-offs. Six years from launch, it is currently at version 0.7 alpha 4 which contains only the calendar (original vision also includes email, tasks, notes, and contact management).

"Dreaming in Code" is much more than a chronicle of Chandler and OSAF, though. It weaves into its storyline short essays that introduce reader to concepts like open-source development, structural and object-oriented programming, methodologies such as capability maturity model and agile. The book contains quotes from Engelbart, Raymond, Knuth, Brooks, Dijkstra, and many many other outstanding people. I guarantee you will learn something by reading it.

Book's website http://www.dreamingincode.com/ has links to Amazon and Barnes & Noble.