Getting Real

If you haven't heard of 37signals (creators of Ruby on Rails, which I am currently working at learning) and their book Getting Real, you need to check it out. At its core, I think this book is just common sense written out. I've followed many of these principles for years (especially when I worked at Delicious Monster)... without really ever thinking of them as principles. But at the same time, the majority of the world doesn't think this way... and it should.

Getting Real is written for web developers. But what it says applies far beyond web development. It's certainly pertinent to designers and desktop software engineers, but I think this stuff holds true for everyone's day-to-day life decisions too. Honestly. It's just about working smarter.

Here are some of my favorite pages:

• Start With No
• It Just Doesn't Matter
• Avoid Preferences
• Make Opinionated Software
• Get Defensive
• Scale Later
• Forget Feature Requests

The whole book is online for free and you can order it in paperback too.

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