The books discussed during the (non-mandatory) literature seminars are:
You may earn points on the take-home exam by attending up to three literature seminars. To attend, you must have read the book subject to discussion (Graham, Raymond or Spolsky) and be able to participate actively in the discussions.
In addition to participating, you will be required to write a short 1-4 page essay about (details) of the book.
Each book you read is worth 15% of the total credits. Thus, you may earn up to 45% of the exam credits before the exam.
How to Prepare:
The idea behind the literature seminars is to discuss the three books, their relevance to the subject, etc. How does the open source philosophy, as it is presented in the books, relate to the development of dynamic programming languages?
Every student should prepare a 5 minute talk (not a presentation, no slides) presenting her opinions of the book and relating it to the course. Which were the most important parts? Why were they important? Did the book change the way you see software development? Why? Do you agree with Paul Graham or not? Are dynamic languages Trojan horses too? Etc.
A student that fails to say something relevant will be asked to give the prepared presentation. A student that says nothing will be failed.
The book can be found in most internet bookstores.
Here's the link to Paul Graham's essays:
http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html
The table of content for Hackers and Painters can also be found on his site:
1. Why Nerds Are Unpopular
2. Hackers and Painters
3. What You Can't Say
4. Good Bad Attitude
5. The Other Road Ahead
6. How to Make Wealth
7. Mind the Gap
8. A Plan for Spam
9. Taste for Makers
10. Programming Languages Explained
11. The Hundred-Year Language
12. Beating the Averages
13. Revenge of the Nerds
14. The Dream Language
15. Design and Research
The book can be found in most internet bookstores.
If you find the contents elsewhere, please note that the book contains more than just the essay named "The Cathedral and the Bazaar":
Table of Contents
* A Brief History of Hackerdom
* The Cathedral and the Bazaar
* Homesteadin the Noosphere
* The Macic Cauldron
* Revenge of the Hackers
* Afterword: Beyond Software?
* Appendix A: How to Become a Hacker
* Appendix B: Statistical Trends in the
Fetchmail Project's Growth
Some of the essays are available here:
http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/
The book can be found in most internet bookstores.
It includes articles previously published on
Joel Spolsky's website (joelonsoftware.com):
Ken Arnold - Style Is Substance
Leon Bambrick - Award for the Silliest User
Interface: Windows Search
Michael Bean - The Pitfalls of Outsourcing Programmers
Rory Blyth - Excel as a Database
Adam Bosworth - ICSOC04 Talk
danah boyd - Autistic Social Software
Raymond Chen - Why Not Just Block the Apps That Rely on
Undocumented Behavior?
Kevin Cheng and Tom Chi - Kicking the Llama
Cory Doctorow - Save Canada's Internet from WIPO
ea_spouse - EA: The Human Story
Bruce Eckel - Strong Typing vs. Strong Testing
Paul Ford - Processing Processing
Paul Graham - Great Hackers
John Gruber - The Location Field is the New
Command Line
Gregor Hohpe - Starbucks Does Not Use Two-Phase Commit
Ron Jeffries - Passion
Eric Johnson - C++ -- The Forgotten Trojan Horse
Eric Lippert - How Many Microsoft Employees
Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb?
Michael "Rands" Lopp - What to do when you're screwed
Larry Osterman - Larry's Rules of Software Engineering #2:
Measuring Testers by Test Metrics Doesn't
Mary Poppendieck - Team Compensation
Rick Schaut - Mac Word 6.0
Clay Shirky - A Group is its Own Worst Enemy
Clay Shirky - Group as User: Flaming and the
Design of Social Software
Eric Sink - Closing the Gap
Eric Sink - Hazards of Hiring
Aaron Swartz - PowerPoint Remix
why the lucky stiff - A Quick (and Hopefully Painless) Ride
Through Ruby (with Cartoon Foxes)