The Art of 'Ware - a great read, now in PDF

I came across the And Still I Persist blog some time ago and it's become a welcome addition to my aggregator, providing some great insights and opinions about the art and science of software development and IT. Bruce Webster, one of the three authors contributing to the blog, has crafted a very enjoyable series of in-depth posts titled The Art of 'Ware, a treatise on software development based on the principles laid out in Sun Tzu's Art of War. He's just made a PDF version available for offline reading and I highly recommend it.

I now have a copy on the N800 where I look forward to reading it as an ebook and sharing it with others. It's also on the X60t Tablet PC where I can now make notes and annotate the current draft (this is an evolving document) in PDF Annotator using digital ink.

Highly recommended. Here's a taste from the introduction post:

It is a cliché to say that we live in times of turmoil and upheaval, but that makes it no less true. Over the past 15-20 years, our national and global economies have been undergoing a sea change into something that we do not, I think, fully understand even now. The process of this transformation is neither easily managed nor soon ended. At the forefront are the technology-driven markets: electronics (including computer technology), software, telecommunications, biotechnology, information and entertainment — the so-called convergence industries. Technology churn causes these industries and companies to reinvent themselves every two to five years. The pace has quickened since the commercial and household emergence of the first new information utility in half a century: the Internet, with its public face, the World Wide Web. And through all this, the distance from the leading edge of technology back to its trailing edge continues to shrink.

Too many good ideas, good products, good technologies die or waste away because the companies involved — especially the small startups — don’t know how to carve out and defend a chunk of the market in which to survive and from which to expand. This book, The Art of ‘Ware, is intended as a survival guide for such firms. While ostensibly written for entrepreneurs, CEOs and company presidents, I would hope that it has value for company employees at all levels, as well as for investors, consultants and analysts. By understanding the principles given here, you increase your value to the firm(s) with which you are associated. By applying these principles, you increase the likelihood of survival for both your company and your job. Failure to do so can mean failure indeed.