Z/Web

Author: Scott Rosenberg

This is a book about a “failed” software venture. It reads like a novel, telling about how Mitch Kapor (Lotus 1-2-3 inventor) formed an open source foundation with the vague goal of creating the ultimate information manager, discovered that was a lot more difficult than it seemed, and three years later they’re barely out with a 0.5 release. It’s a fascinating read about the difficulties of software creation, looking throughout history and comparing software development to fields like architecture, art, and engineering. Unfortunately, though an interesting read, the book fails to provide any conclusions, and the dramatic story of Kapor’s company doesn’t end, it just peters out, since Rosenberg didn’t want to wait several more years until Kapor’s software is actually released. A bit disappointing in that respect, but as long as you aren’t expecting a resolution to the story, it’s a wonderful intellectual read that will have you asking a lot of questions about how we develop software.

Not bad. At times I was worried this was drifting into typical recent-Disney crap where the story’s just a loose excuse for lame jokes, but fortunately this came back around with a solid story at the heart. The story’s about an orphan boy who is into inventing. Since he’s too geeky to get adopted, he decides to invent a memory machine that will help him find his mother who abandonned him as a baby. Then we’ve got an over-the-top villain (complete with melodramatic black cape, pencil mustache, and yellow-toothed evil grin) who’s traveled back in time to sabotage the memory machine, and a young boy time traveler who takes the inventor to the future where he meets the boy’s wacky family. Some of the characters, like the toothless Grandpa, seem like excuses for those lame jokes I was talking about, but in the end the inventor boy has to learn a lesson, save the future, and find a family. Not quite up to Pixar standards, but better than recent Disney animations.