A few years ago, I bought a coffee mug that says, "So many books, so little time." It clearly expressed my attitude toward life. I'm a busy person, and as a result, I'm very protective of the little time I have for pleasure reading.

Generally, I try to find time during working hours for technical reading. But, every now and then, a computer-related book is appealing enough for me to devote some private hours to it. Over the last few months, three such books managed to work their way onto my list.

Craftsmen or professionals?

I've written in this space (most recently in the March 2000 issue) about Microsoft's certification program. Steve McConnell's After the Gold Rush (Microsoft Press) argues that vendor certification isn't enough. He proposes a true profession of software engineering that would involve certification and/or licensing much like that required for other engineers and professionals.

I was fairly skeptical when I started reading, but McConnell's arguments are cogent, and by the end of the book, he had me fairly convinced. The analogies with other kinds of engineering and professions make sense. Much of the software being developed today is mission-critical and even life-critical. We're all aware of the shortcomings in today's software development process. A movement toward professional development standards and ways of distinguishing amateurs from professionals and beginners from experts can only improve the results and the public's respect for the field.

But how does it work?

When someone asks you to explain how a computer works, I suspect you probably divide the discussion into hardware and software. Charles Petzold's book, Code (Microsoft Press), provides a new way of thinking about this issue.

Code opens by considering two children signaling each other with flashlights and proceeds to discuss electrical circuits, integrated circuits, operating systems, etc. The discussion continues through programming languages to show how codes are the common thread in all aspects of computing.

I've studied many of the subjects in this book at one time or another, but much of it has since been relegated to the dusty corners of my brain. Petzold's well-grounded explanations and diagrams provided a great refresher.

I recommend this book not only for you, but also for those clients (and family members) who always want to know about what's going on under the hood.

Interfaces again

No matter how you feel about the results, the 2000 U.S. presidential election clearly demonstrated the importance of the user interface. Many of the problems with the election could have been avoided if the users (voters) had been provided with a clear, unambiguous interface for voting (and one that didn't require them to read the directions, since we know users don't read manuals).

I've been interested in user interfaces for a long time. In fact, my graduate work was in this area. Over the years, I've read a variety of books on the subject. I generally agree with the diagnosis of the problem, but often disagree with the proposed solutions. Jef Raskin's The Humane Interface (Addison-Wesley) is no exception.

Raskin, who was the creator of the Macintosh project at Apple, not only provides anecdotal descriptions of problems with today's user interfaces, but includes formulas for measuring the effectiveness of interface techniques. You can use them to compute both the estimated time for a given operation and the efficiency of the operation.

The solutions he offers are revolutionary. His suggestions include doing away with individual applications (and the operating system), as well as unifying the operations available. He also recommends eliminating file names and hierarchical directories, and offering full text search instead. One suggestion I found particularly hard to understand is the elimination of the Caps Lock key, on the grounds that it creates a mode. (In general, Raskin considers modes a bad idea, and on the whole, I agree with him.)

But whether or not I think Raskin is right, reading his suggestions helped open my eyes to the fact that the way user interfaces look now is not necessarily the way they have to look down the road. Whether we end up following his ideas or doing something totally different, it's likely that five or 10 years from now user interfaces will be quite different from today's.

The bottom line

At first glance, the only commonality these three books have is that they're about computers. What really ties them together, however, is that they make us think about topics in a different light. Having my mind opened is definitely worth some of my precious reading time.