The Tao of Programming
| Author | Geoffrey James |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Gloria Garland |
| Cover artist | Gloria Garland |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Computer programming |
| Genre | Computer programming, Satire |
| Publisher | InfoBooks |
Publication date | 1987 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 151 |
| ISBN | 0-931137-07-1 |
| OCLC | 13904639 |
| 005 19 | |
| LC Class | QA76.6 .J354 1987 |
| Followed by | The Zen of Programming |
The Tao of Programming is a book written in 1987 by Geoffrey James. Written in a tongue-in-cheek style spoof of classic Taoist texts such as the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi which belies its serious message. The Tao of Programming consists of a series of short anecdotes divided into nine "books":
- The Silent Void
- The Ancient Masters
- Design
- Coding
- Maintenance
- Management
- Corporate Wisdom
- Hardware and Software
- Epilogue
The themes of the book espouse many hacker ideals – managers should leave programmers to their work; code should be small, elegant, and maintainable; corporate wisdom is more often than not an oxymoron; and so on.
Geoffrey James wrote two more books like The Tao of Programming -- The Zen of Programming in 1988 and Computer Parables: Enlightenment in the Information Age in 1989. However, they have not been as well received.
External links
- An online version of The Tao of Programming
- The Unix Koans of Master Foo, by Eric S. Raymond, a writing with related tone and argument, as discussed in its introduction
- A Chinese translation of The Tao of Programming
- A Vietnamese translation of The Tao of Programming
- A Spanish translation of The Tao of Programming