Joel's writing comes mostly from his blog, Joel on Software. The posts are 20 to 25 years old. However, they have aged well. This book is a sequel to Joel on software, which followed the same format. Ten years ago, Joel handed over the running of the company to somebody else. He then went on to lead Stack Overflow.
Bell Labs worked on serious phone company future plans. They wanted to communicate overseas. The proposal was laying cable under the sea. They needed to build in repeaters to keep up the signal. They also researched ways to use satellites.
There was research on how to transmit signal over what would become fiber optic. Some research was not necessarily specific to the phone industry. To replace vacuum tubes, they invented the transistor.
The book covered government attempts to break up the monopoly. This somehow included AT&T. Eventually some parts would be in a merger of Alcatel and Lucent.
Elnora starts looking for paid work. There is a Bird Woman who pays handsomely for specimens from the woods. Or in this case, from the wetlands know as the Limberlost. Elnora sells things such as rare moths to the Bird Woman. She can afford books and clothes and more.
When Elnora graduates, she finds her funds have dwindled to nothing. She wants to go to college. But the costs are even higher. She is trying to finish putting together a collection of moths. She finally has the most rare one. But her mom thinks it is some predatory animal and destroys it.
Elnora's aunt finds out what happened. She then goes to Elnora's mom and tells her about the details of Elnora's father's death. Apparently he was cheating on his wife. This is why he took a dangerous route through the wetlands and dies. Eventually her mom understands everything, and reconciles with Elnora.
Elnora decided to take a year off from school. She meets Phil, a handsome Harvard grad. Phil is on rest at his uncle doctor's advice. He needs some time outdoors in the south. Phil knows a lot about moths. He assists Elnora in her collecting for a whole summer as he is recuperating from his illness. He has a fiance back home in Chicago.
Before leaving to go back home, Phil seems to express romantic in Elnora. She shuts it down. Back home, Phil breaks up with his girlfriend. He returns to the Limberlost to marry Elnora. However, Elnora is not convinced as he has been engaged for most of his life. She needs to speak with his ex-fiance.
Joel is the founder of a software company in NYC. Their main product is FOGBUGZ, a bug tracking software. Joel himself is famous for his blog, Joel on Software, which covers software development. I think this book is mainly a collection of articles from his blog.
Joel talks about running a small company in New York. He also tells us stories from his past employers, which include Microsoft. He explains why writing most code in Visual BASIC is an advantage. His team is not afraid to write small parts in C++. Joel confesses he is not well versed in ATL.
I just finished this book. Time for "More Joel on Software".
A guy who ran the company who bought Daniel's startup later invested in the starting of Spotify. Their goal was to make a great music listening experience. The needed to have their site immediately start playing any music, without lag.
Spotify had always had a problem with record labels. Spotify wanted to provide the music for free and make money off ads. The music industry was vehemently opposed to this. Eventually, Daniel and co had to get one of the major labels to agree to license their music. The label got partial ownership of Spotify, and had a lot of guarantees that they would get paid, even if users listened to music for free.
Eventually Spotify had to compete with other music vendors like Apple and such. Spotify went public on the New York Stock Exchange. They offered shares directly to the public initially. The company was worth $20B, and eventually climbed as high as $50B. Daniel became a billionaire many times over.
There is some professor like dude. He invents a time machine. He returns to the present in bad shape. After he gets ahold of himself, he tells his story. He traveled far into the future. Initially he met these aimless little creatures. They slept at night and feared the dark. His time machine gets stolen.
He saves one of these little creates from drowning. She then follows him around. At night, the professor discovers that some monkey like beings come out from the depths underground. He figures these are the beings of industry. As the aimless creatures do not seem to do any work.
The professor goes down into a shaft. The monkey creatures attack him. They are susceptible to light. And he has some matches. He is able to climb back up to the surface. At night, they pursue him out into a forest. He eventually is able to survive a battle with them. He cracks open some statues and finds where the monkeys hide his time machine.
People in the present are not sure whether to believe him or not.
To make due, Tomi's mom works for a wealthy man, cleaning the house. Tomi, his mom, and little sister live in a guest house on his mom's employer's property. Tomi and all other Japanese is chased by a young vigilante group. Tomi's dad's fishing boat is sunk based on suspicious of it being used to assist the enemy.
Tomi has a white friend Billy. Their family is not prejudice against Japanese. Together they make plans and enlist help to lift his dad's sunken boat. Tomi's grandfather has a stroke, and is let out of jail under care of Billy's mom, who happens to be a nurse who works at the hospital.
Tomi's dad gets a girlfriend who does tattoos for $15 each. Tomi plans to use air in tire tubes to float the boat up from the water. He also dives down with friends to pull heavy pieces off the boat. Eventually he gets the grand idea to use two huge pontoons to help lift the boat.
The son of Tomi's mom's employer is part of the vigilante group. He continues to come after Tomi. He steals Tomi's prized family sword, which Tomi had hidden. When this evil son brings some thugs to stop the boat operation, they encounter people they know on Tomi's team. Eventually Tomi calls out the bully, and beats him on a 1-vs-1 fight. The thugs back down.
Some MPs come. Tomi provides a cover story that his dad's boat sunk. And he is trying to raise it back up. Another aside is that they find the key to the truck of Tomi's dad's partner who was killed. They sell the truck for cash and give the money to his widow.
