If you read Joel on Software, you know Joel has been promoting his new book, The Best Software Writing I. When I first heard about the book, I thought it was a collection of articles originally published in "dead tree format"*. There's definite value there. An anthology can bring you the best-of-breed material and save you the time and cost of buying separate books or magazines.It turns out The Best Software Writing I is really a collection of blog entries. Jeff Atwood recently posted links to all of the original blog entries. So why would you want to buy Joel's book? According to Jeff, "it's reasonable to have these entries in book form, with Joel's typically insightful introduction for each entry".
I am reserving judgment. It doesn't seem worthwhile to pay for a book, most of which is available online. I am working my way through the live blog entries. There are some interesting viewpoints. Of course, the big advantage to reading the material online is you get the complete context of each author's other blog entries.
* Dead tree format is the hip way of saying "printed on paper". Or perhaps it was hip once. In any case, I think it is silly, but I somehow couldn't resist using it.
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