Software jobs

Introduction to Best Software Writing I

By Joel SpolskyMonday, June 20, 2005
This is the introduction to The Best Software Writing I, Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky, now in bookstores.
New York City is a blast.
Just the other day, as I was walking the four blocks from my office to the subway entrance, interesting things kept happening.
Not really interesting things, just modestly interesting things.
So, for example, some guy was running down the sidewalk frantically, looking very much like a character in an R. Crumb comic, flapping his arms broadly and making chicken sounds. Running isn’t the right word. He was kind of pratfalling repeatedly and then catching himself right before he hit the ground.
Then a taxi turning the corner nearly knocked over an old man who was crossing the street a little bit too slowly for the taxi driver’s taste.
A couple of chubby, red-faced out of towners asked me if there was a bar anywhere nearby. (There was. We were in front of it.)
Someone was handing out little advertising cards at the entrance to the subway. Of course, the inside of the subway station was completely littered with the cards because everybody who took one immediately hurled it on the ground as violently as you can hurl a four by six postcard. I almost slipped on one on the steps down.
Modestly interesting stuff, but quite forgettable in New York.
The next day I was talking to one of the summer interns we just hired. For some reason, this year’s summer intern class consists of 75% people who are either from Indiana or who went to school in Indiana. Indiana, for those of you not familiar with our American landscape, is somewhere in the middle, a state of farms, wholesome colleges with corn-fed basketball-playing kids, Norman Rockwell towns, and the occasional rust-belt hellmouth industrial city gasping its last breath. (As I write these words I brace for the slew of angry letters from the Indiana Department of Tourism and Infrastructure promoting the exciting cultural scene, the many picturesque lakes, the world-class telephone system, and the variety of ethnic restaurants. You might find a Mexican restaurant and an Italian restaurant on the same block!)