Some articles aged better than others, some blog posts were not tidied up to the level expected for a book vs an internet blog. If it weren't for that it would have been five stars. ( )

Outdated, but fun read for programmers and managers alike. ( )

Brilliant read, Joel’s thoughts have somehow withstood the test of time in one of the fastest-changing fields. ( )

Most tech books get old and out-of-date with time. However I learned plenty of stuff from Joel on Software and enjoyed the author's humour and approach on many topics.

Here's a non-exhaustive list of things I learned (more) about:
- Always have a bug tracking system.
- Fix bugs first before you move on to working on new features. Saves lots of time.
- The Joel Test. I need to score better at that.
- Character encodings. I always got away with not knowing much about that, now I do. Thanks Joel :D.
- Do paper prototyping.
- Incentive pay. Don't do that.
- Avoid multi-tasking. Humans aren't really good at it.
- Not-Invented-Here Syndrome. It's not necessarily bad.
- Chicken-And-Egg problems in the software world.

There's a sequel: More Joel on Software, I might read it sometime.

Quotes:

I always wanted to start a blog, this is somewhat of a motivation.

[...] Philip Greenspun, who taught me that if you know something, you need to publish it on the web for others to learn from.

Rewarding good coders by promoting them to a different position, one that involves writing English, not C , is a classic case of the Peter Principle: people tend to be promoted to their level of incompetence.

About the Not-Invented-Here Syndrome:

If it's a core business function, do it yourself, no matter what.

( )

Very engaging, often informative or insightful. I especially liked the essay on character encoding. Spolsky also gives good tips on office environment, productivity, and must-haves in a development environment -- encouraging you to take on those projects that seem peripheral to the work but make a world of difference. ( )