Metamorphosis: A Programmer Looks at the Software Crisis

The real problem is a society that treats programmers as though they were assembly-line laborers. Companies wish to own and exploit what is essentially a creative process--one that doesn't fit established capitalist models and one that they understand nothing about. As long as software is force-fitted together in a market-driven environment, where projects are managed by ignoramuses who happen to own the means of production, the crisis will remain. If this sounds like a Marxist critique, you're right. But it only begins to characterize this strange, discursive, often irritating, and frequently wise book.

Although the author describes his work as "bone-jarringly radical," many of his views are deeply conservative, at least as the term is understood in modern American politics. Beckett also is indiscriminate as to where he pulls his punches and most readers will find themselves enjoying some parts while intensely disliking others. Some readers, for example, enjoy the section on the Denver baggage-handling software fiasco and the open letters to Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, while strongly disliking the long sections of biblical analysis. Others may feel differently, but perhaps the most refreshing thing about this book is that the author doesn't care whether readers are pleased or not, as long as you're willing to listen to his argument. Metamorphosis: A Programmer Looks at the Software Crisis reads, by turns, like social critique, management handbook, history lesson, religious tract, Dilbert cartoon, and barroom harangue. However, if you've suspected that there's more to the software crisis than problems with the waterfall methodology, you may well enjoy it.