Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit - by Mary & Tom Poppendieck

To put it in a nutshell, this is a book that tells you how to apply Lean principles to software development.


There are 7 of these principles - Eliminate Waste, Amplify Learning, Decide as late as possible, Deliver as fast as possible, Empower The Team, Build Integrity In & See The Whole. There are total 22 tools spread across these principles to help you apply them to software projects.


What struck me first is that the language used is very easy-to-understand. There is almost no jargon. There are plenty of references for further reading. And liberally sprinkled throughout the text are anecdotes and examples from real world - I don't want to call them 'Case Studies' because they are told in a very easy-to-follow manner - that many of us from the software field would surely relate to. You don't have to read this book cover-to-cover. There is plenty to gain even if you select a principle and start reading the relevant sections.


I highly recommend this book for light but useful reading on managing projects. I am sure you would keep referring back to it. I surely am going to.

खलनायक - सदानंद गोखले

खरं तर ह्या लेखकाचं नाव मी ऐकलेलं नाही. पण पुस्तक चाळून पाहिलं तेव्हा इंटरेस्टिंग वाटलं. पुस्तकाची मांडणी तशी चांगली केली आहे. पहिल्या भागात जुन्या काळातील के. एन. सिंग., जीवन अश्या ओळखीच्या आणि याकूब, नायमपल्ली ह्या (निदान मला तरी) थोड्या अनोळखी व्हीलन्सने सुरुवात होते. दुसर्या भागात अमजद खान, प्राण, अमरीश पुरी ह्यासारखे दादा लोक भेटून जातात. तिसर्या भागात विनोद खन्ना, शत्रुघ्न सिन्हा आणि नाना पाटेकर ह्या नायक असून खलनायकाची भूमिका केलेल्या नटांबद्दल माहिती मिळते. ह्या गटात नानाला कोंबायचं प्रयोजन मला कळलं नाही. पण बहुतेक तो दुसर्या कुठल्या गटात बसत नसल्याने त्याला इथे समाविष्ट केलं असावं.


चौथा भाग वेगळा का केला हेही समजलं नाही. ह्यात अजित, प्रेम चोप्रा, गुलशन ग्रोव्हर असे वेगवेगळ्या काळातले व्हीलन्स एकत्र आणलेत पण शीर्षक दिलंय 'व्हिलन बाय प्रोफेशन'. म्हणजे काय? सगळे प्रोफेशनल व्हीलन्सच आहेत की. तीच गत पाचव्या आणि सहाव्या भागाची. पाचव्यात 'समथिंग स्पेशल' ह्या नावाखाली अशोक कुमार, तरुण बोस, रेहमान, शशी कपूर आणि प्रेमनाथ ह्या सगळ्यांची एकत्र मोट बांधली आहे. तर सहाव्यात शक्ती कपूर, अन्वर हुसेन, मनोज बाजपेयी असे ५-६ व्हिलन्स भेटतात. पहिल्या तीन भागातल्या स्वच्छ वर्गीकरणाचा इथे साफ फज्जा उडालेला दिसतो.


सातवा भाग थोडाफार रुळावर आलाय. ह्यात गाण्यातून व्यक्त झालेली खलनायकी, डाकू, दरोडेखोर असे विषय आहेत. आठवा भाग - हॉलीवूडच्या खलनायकांवरचा - फारच संक्षिप्त झालाय. नवव्या भागात मराठीतले खलनायक आहेत. डॉ. श्रीराम लागू, सदाशिव अमरापूरकर आणि निळू फुले ह्यांच्याबद्दल विस्ताराने माहिती असली तरी राजशेखर, दादा साळवी ह्यांच्यासारख्या नटांचा, शशिकला, इंदिरा चिटणीस ह्या मराठी खलनायिकांचा उल्लेख नाही, जुन्या ऐतिहासिक, पौराणिक किंवा ग्रामीण विषयांवर आधारित चित्रपटातल्या खलनायकांबद्दल काहीच माहिती नाही हे खटकतं.


तसंच ह्या सगळ्या वर्गीकरणाच्या गडबडीत मनमोहन, मेकमोहन, देव कुमार, सुजितकुमार, रझा मुराद, शेट्टी असे अनेक खलनायक विसरले गेलेत.

शेवटला भाग मात्र छान जमलाय. ह्यात ललिता पवार, शशिकला, नादिरा, बिंदू, हेलन ह्यासारख्या गाजलेल्या आणि प्रणोती घोषसारख्या एकाच चित्रपटात झळकलेल्या खलनायिकांबद्दल चांगली माहिती मिळते. मात्र अरुणा इराणी, शम्मी, मनोरमा ह्यांचा उल्लेख राहून गेलाय.


प्रत्येक खलनायक आणि खलनायिकेबद्दलचं प्रकरण मात्र खूप विस्कळीत झालंय. प्रकरणाची सुरुवात कधी त्यांचा ह्या क्षेत्रात प्रवेश कसा झाला ह्याच्या माहितीने, कधी त्यांच्या चित्रपटाच्या यादीने तर कधी एखाद्या किश्श्याने होते. त्यापेक्षा आधी त्यांचा प्रवेशआणि मग त्यांचे चित्रपट त्यातल्या खास किस्से आणि वैशिष्ट्यासह अशी मांडणी असती तर मजकूर अधिक वाचनीय झाला असता. काही लेखात अनवधानाने चित्रपटातील रहस्य उलगडलं गेलंय – उदा. गुमराह (अशोक कुमार) आणि गुप्त (काजोल). तर काही ठिकाणी तपशिलाच्या चुका झाल्या आहेत – उदा. लावारिस मध्ये अमिताभ बच्चनची आईआणि प्रेयसी दोघींच्या नावाचा उल्लेख 'मोहिनी' असा आहे. तर 'आरती' चित्रपटाच्या बाबतीत शशिकलाचा उल्लेख नायिकेची नणंद आणि जाऊ असा झालाय.


ह्या पुस्तकातून बरीच माहिती मिळत असली तरी ते अधिक वाचनीय करता आलं असतं एव्हढं नक्की.


ता. क. ‘राजकुमार आणि रेहमान ह्यांची "वक्त" मधली संवादातली जुगलबंदी आणि दोघांचं टायमिंग म्हणजे उच्च कोटीच्या अभिनयाचा आविष्कार होता' हे वाक्य वाचून भरपूर करमणूक झाली. राजकुमार अभिनय करायचा हि ब्रेकिंग न्यूज आहे :-)

Reporting Pakistan - Meena Menon

Dangerous Minds - S. Husain Zaidi & Brijesh Singh

We Will Eat Again, Victory Cookbook, Post War Kitchen  - Marguerite Patten

The Big Short: Inside The Doomsday Machine - Michael Lewis

Into The Water - Paula Hawkins

At first, it was difficult to remember all characters - they made fast appearances within first few pages. And there were quite a lot of them. Jules's (not Julia!) quiet little world is shaken to the core when she gets news that her elder sister Danielle (Nel!), who she has been estranged with since years, has committed suicide and that she will have to take care of Lena, Nel's teenage daughter, who hates her for always ignoring her mother.

Then there are the residents of Beckford. DI Sean Townsend is a capable officer but there is a shadow there somewhere of some tragedy - recent or past, it is hard to figure out. His wife, Helen, is rather plain-looking but there is steel beneath that soft exterior. Sean's dad Patrick is well-respected in the community but the town's psychic (I forget her name!) cannot help but suspect that he had something to do with the death of his wife. Then there is Katie, Lena's 15-year old dear friend who had ended her life but no one knows why. Her younger brother Josh is evidently keeping some secret. Her mother is trying her best to cope with her grief but blames Nel for Katie's death. Mark Henderson is a handsome teacher - perhaps a tad too handsome for the 'little town of Beckford'. There is a police officer who is assisting Sean in the investigation of Nel's death.

And surrounding all this are two structures. One of them is man-made. The other was fashioned by Nature. Wards' Cottage has a bloody history associated with it - Annie killed her husband there and then jumped into the pool. Ah yes, The Drowning Pool. A place where countless women, through centuries, have reportedly ended their miserable sad lives. But Nel had been sure that the pool was a convenient place to get rid of women who had become 'troublesome' for someone or other. Did her conviction made someone get rid of her? Or did she commit suicide? Was Jules justified in hating her all these years?

We get some answers and some, we don't. Of course, the author tells her whether Nel killed herself or was murdered by someone. She tells us why Jules hated her for almost all her life. She also tells us about why Annie killed her husband, why Libbie Setton was drowned in the pool and how Sean's mom died. But she doesn't tell us about how Jeanie died. She doesn't tell us about how Patrick ended up with Nel's locket, though we can make an educated guess. We are kept wondering about how town's psychic knows things that even the cops are unaware about. And about what exactly is the relation between Patrick and Helen. And about what happend to Henderson. The twist in the tale sounds lame and artificial, as if the author thought of it at the very last minute.

Needless to say, the book left me with a sense of being cheated by the author :-(

97 Things Every Programmer Should Know

To be frank, I was looking for '97 Things Every Architect Should Know' when I came across the above title instead. Intrigued, I read on.

And was glad that I did. Ranging from the delightful 'Learn To Say "Hello World" -' about letting go of your IDE and using the command line tools - to the quirky 'Let Your Project Speak For Itself' - about using an extreme feedback device to publicizing project metrics - to the arcane (at least to my Java ears!) 'The Linker Is Not A Magical Program', this 188 page book is packed with little gems that will go a long way in improving not only your projects but also how you do your work. And they are a joy to read.

I highly recommend getting a copy for the developers in your team. And while you are at it, do take some time to go through it yourself.

P.S. Wonder why they couldn't make it a 100 things.

Patterns Of Software - Richard Gabriel

At the beginning of this year, a friend had forwarded a list of things to do this year. One of them was 'Read a difficult book'. I guess I can confidently put a check against this one - I just finished reading 'Patterns Of Software' by Richard Gabriel. To be accurate, it's not actually a book. Rather, it is a collection of essays that appeared in the Journal Of Object-Oriented Programming, somewhere in the distant 90s. Though many of them talk about how 'Patterns Of Architecture' popularized by architect Christopher Alexander apply to the world of software, there are others that talk about the size of computer languages, their history, productivity etc.

To be fair, I hadn't expected to grasp 100% of the material. And some parts of many chapters simply sounded too  abstruse. But the article that totally stumped me was 'The Bead Games, Rugs and Beauty'. I tried to make sense of it, I really did. But my grey matter was just not upto the task. Much as I like leaving things unfinished, I had to abandon reading the chapter. Must say that this chapter is mainly responsible for my completing the 'Read a difficult book' part of this year's to-do list. :-)

And I was thinking that the honor would go to Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History Of Time' :-)

Marketing High Technology: An Insider's View - Davidow, W. H.

The Loonliness Of A Deep Sea Diver - David Beckett

Pakistan Courting The Abyss - Tilak Devasher

Being Happy & Happier - Tal Ben-Shahar

The world's Last mysteries - Readers Digest

Ashoka In Ancient India - Nayanjyot Lahiri