Weasel Words

May 24, 2004

Mike Gunderloy’s Coder to Developer purports to pass along the wisdom of experienced developers (or, at least, one experienced developer) and explain the practices and techniques that aren’t taught in school, but which make development work a lot easier. He’s aiming, in short, for the same target that The Pragmatic Programmer aimed for.

But he doesn’t hit it, exactly. Gunderloy’s book isn’t a bad book — it’s well organized, it’s up-to-date, it has lots of useful information — but it’s not exactly what it purports to be. A more accurate title would be Best Practices for Developing Software with Small Teams in .NET — because while there is some general advice here, it’s fairly obvious and high-level; the detailed and worthwhile parts of the book are those that delve more specifically into an overview of the tools available to .NET developers. There’s a chapter on using Visual Studio well, a chapter on build tools for .NET, a chapter on version control options, a chapter on .NET unit testing tools (with NUnit examples), and so on.

Gunderloy also has an odd habit of including topics by reference. When he talks about making schedules, for instance, he basically says, “Go read Joel’s essay,” provides a URL, and then goes from there. This isn’t necessarily a bad idea — Joel’s essay is well-written and sensible, so why should Gunderloy bother rewriting it just to slap it in his book? — but it feels very un-book-like.

Really, the whole book feels more like a Web page or a blog than a proper book. Everything in it is very much of the now — all those reviews of tools will be obsolete in two years, when the tool landscape has changed; and even the links to Web essays might be broken as URLs drift — and there’s very little timeless wisdom. So, if you’re reading this in 2004, are developing in .NET, and want to get a broad overview of the tools landscape for that environment, this is a fine resource; but if you’re reading this later or using a different environment, this isn’t the book for you.

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May 23, 2004

The Death of the Necromancer is a great urban fantasy set in a gaslight city, so when I found out that Martha Wells’ The Wizard Hunters was a sequel to it, I was expecting more of the same — and looking forward to it, because there aren’t nearly enough fantasies set in Victorian settings. But “more of the same” is precisely what Wells doesn’t deliver.

It quickly becomes apparent that, while this is a sequel, it’s not a particularly immediate one. It begins decades after The Death of the Necromancer, and quite a lot has happened in the interval. Characters from the earlier book are dead, electric lights are replacing the gas ones, and, oh yeah, Ile-Rien is in the late stages of a losing war against a mysterious and powerful enemy.

Things don’t get any more predictable from there — just as we’re becoming familiar with this strange new world, the book takes a detour into the realm of “crossover” fantasy, as the characters go through a portal to a different world, with medieval technology and evil wizards. In the wrong hands, this could have been a disaster. To take a novel and interesting setting, then throw it away to do Generic Medievaloid Fantasy, would be a shame. But Wells doesn’t give us Generic anything — this world may be low-tech and magical, but it’s alien, distinct, and well-developed. It’s so well-developed, in fact, that I was convinced it was a sequel to some other book, and that she was doing some universe-unification work (this doesn’t appear to actually be the case).

I’ve enjoyed all of Martha Wells’ books, and The Wizard Hunters is particularly good even by comparison to her other books. Interesting characters, two distinct and interesting worlds, a pacey plot, intriguing puzzles, and an all-around distinctiveness make this a book that stands way out from the YAMVEF crowd. The only caveat I’ll give is that this is a Book One, so those wary of reading novels on the installment plan (as I increasingly am these days) might want to wait for the whole thing to be finished. But do make sure to read it eventually.

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May 15, 2004

So, what to say about Steven Brust’s Sethra Lavode , the final volume of his Paarfi novels? Nothing coherent, I’m afraid, so here’s a bulleted list of thoughtlets:

• Going in, I was afraid I’d be tired of Paarfi’s voice by now — it’s a bit affected, and we’ve had it for four books already, after all — but no. I still love it, and am slightly saddened that there won’t be more Paarfi book. (But only slightly; better to want more than to wish there had been fewer.)
• I can’t help noticing how cosmological the Dragaera books have gotten recently. Issola is obviously the most noticeable example, but the three Viscount of Adrilankha books are far more metaphysical and high-powered than The Phoenix Guards. This book has bits about the gods, about the Jenoine, and about the Orb.
• Who wrote the afterword on this one? The name didn’t seem obvious, and I haven’t seen anyone say straight-out who it was...

So, yeah, good book, basically on the same level as the previous books in the series. If you’ve read those and liked them, you’ll read this and like it, too.

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May 8, 2004

If you’ve been following my booklog and simultaneously paying attention to the copyright dates on books, you’ve noticed that I inexplicably never read James Alan Gardner’s Commitment Hour , which was written before the last book or two of his that I have read

Well, there’s a reason for that. Commitment Hour had that sort of ideological feminist look about it, a sort of Le Guin/Tepper aura. And while I’m theoretically fine with books that are all deeply introspective about gender roles, in practice, I more often want to read action-packed space adventures. Yeah, I’m shallow. So be it.

So anyway, after reading Hunted, I said to myself, “Dude, I bet that book totally isn’t what you’re thinking it is; it’s probably this adventure/mystery thing, and you’re an idiot to be avoiding it.” So, I picked it up, and I was half right — it was an adventure/mystery story, but it was also an exploration of gender role stuff. Thankfully, the combination worked well, and it never became preachy or didactic.

On the downside, it was a bit obvious; there’s a long period of the book where things are obvious to you that aren’t obvious to the narrator, which is irritating. But then, that’s largely because Gardner is doing the same thing Kirstein did in her Steerswoman books — describing high-tech stuff from the perspective of an ignorant, superstitious primitive. So, okay, yeah, we know the protagonist’s “gods” are probably not actual deities, while he doesn’t; that’s not really a flaw in the book. Still, Gardner’s a bit less skilled than Kirstein at writing from a primitive’s perspective — the narrator here does come off a bit slow by not realizing what’s going on.

Long story short, not Gardner’s best book, but not bad, either. If you’ve read his other stuff, you’ll want to read this (which is set in the same universe, but features no characters from other books); if not, read something else first.

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