The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition)
Frederick P. Brooks
August 1995
Amazon.com says: "The classic book on the human elements of software engineering. Software tools and development environments may have changed in the 21 years since the first edition of this book, but the peculiarly nonlinear economies of scale in collaborative work and the nature of individuals and groups has not changed an epsilon. If you write code or depend upon those who do, get this book as soon as possible -- from Amazon.com Books, your library, or anyone else. You (and/or your colleagues) will be forever grateful. Very Highest Recommendation."

Jack Ganssle says: "When the IBM 360 tools project started running late, managers hired more programmers. And then they iterated this process, eventually boosting team size from the projected 150 to over a thousand developers.

They found that each new batch of hiring slowed the project dramatically. Fred Brooks recounts in his seminal must-read The Mythical Man-Month that the effort eventually ran years late and dramatically over-budget.

As a result of this debacle, he formulated the thesis now known as Brooks Law: adding people to a late project makes it later." See full article from 2005: Team Sizes

Real-Life MDA: Solving Business Problems with Model Driven Architecture
Michael Guttman, John Parodi
December 2006
The publisher says: "Written for executives, analysts, architects, and engineers positioned to influence business-oriented software development at the highest levels. Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is a new approach to software development that helps companies manage large, complex software projects and save development costs while allowing new technologies that come along to be readily incorporated. Although it is based on many long-standing industry precepts and best practices, such as UML, it is enough of a departure from traditional IT approaches to require some 'proof of the pudding.' Real-Life MDA is composed of six case studies of real companies using MDA that will furnish that proof. The authors' approach MDA projects by describing all aspects of the project from the viewpoint of the end-users--from the reason for choosing an MDA approach to the results and benefits. The case studies are preceded by an introductory chapter and are followed by a wrap-up chapter summarizing lessons learned."

Software Measurement and Estimation: A Practical Approach
Linda M. Laird, M. Carol Brennan
June 2006
The publisher says: "An effective, quantitative approach for estimating and managing software projects....Software Measurement and Estimation: A Practical Approach allows practicing software engineers and managers to better estimate, manage, and effectively communicate the plans and progress of their software projects. With its classroom-tested features, this is an excellent textbook for advanced undergraduate-level and graduate students in computer science and software engineering. " More info: www.wiley.com.

Hacking The Cable Modem: What Cable Companies Don't Want You To Know
DerEngel
September 2006

The publisher says: "Hacking the Cable Modem goes inside the device that makes Internet via cable possible and, along the way, reveals secrets of many popular cable modems, including products from Motorola, RCA, WebSTAR, D-Link and more.

Written for people at all skill levels, the book features step-by-step tutorials with easy to follow diagrams, source code examples, hardware schematics, links to software (exclusive to this book!), and previously unreleased cable modem hacks."

So You Wanna Be an Embedded Engineer
Lewin Edwards
July 2006

In this practical guide, expert embedded designer and manager Lewin Edwards answers the question, How do I become an embedded engineer? Embedded professionals agree that there is a treacherous gap between graduating from school and becoming an effective engineer in the workplace, and that there are few resources available for newbies to turn to when in need of advice and direction. This book provides that much-needed guidance for engineers fresh out of school, and for the thousands of experienced engineers now migrating into the popular embedded arena.

This book helps new embedded engineers to get ahead quickly by preparing them for the technical and professional challenges they will face. Detailed instructions on how to achieve successful designs using a broad spectrum of different microcontrollers and scripting languages are provided. The author shares insights from a lifetime of experience spent in-the-trenches, covering everything from small vs. large companies, and consultancy work vs. salaried positions, to which types of training will prove to be the most lucrative investments. This book provides an experts authoritative answers to questions that pop up constantly on Usenet newgroups and in break rooms all over the world.

--Synopsis provided by book publisher

Patent It Yourself (11th Edition)
David Pressman
This book is just one of approximately a zillion self-help books put out by Nolo Press. The publisher's "Law for All" series is just what it sounds like: legal advice for nonlegal professionals working in other fields, say, engineering. The book, like all the ones in the series, is clear and well written without being condescending. This particular title includes forms and samples of patent applications and an extensive list of do's and don'ts that help the neophyte patent applicant navigate the minefield of the patent system. The key: patience.

Other similar titles in the series include:
How to Make Patent Drawings: A Patent It Yourself Companion
The Inventor's Notebook: A Patent It Yourself Companion
Patent Pending in 24 Hours
What Every Inventor Needs to Know About Business and Taxes
and my favorite:
All I Need Is Money: How to Finance Your Invention
Recommended.

--Jim Turley, editor in chief
Embedded Systems Design

Embedded Systems Dictionary
Jack Ganssle, Michael Barr
How can you build embedded systems if you don't speak the language? This dictionary defines the meaning and usage of 2,800 of the most-used terms in embedded systems in a way that serves both technical and non-technical audiences. The book is replete with pronunciation guides, abbreviations, alternative terms, cross references, examples, diagrams, schematics, figures, equations, code listings, and tips for further reading.

Product Development for the Lean Enterprise: Why Toyota's System Is Four Times More Productive and How You Can Implement It
Michael N. Kennedy
"Toyota's product development engineers are four times a productive as their counterparts in most other companies, according to a study by the National center for Manufacturing Sciences." That's what it says on the dust cover of this book. The author, who spent 30 years at TI, is described as having "pioneered the redesign of organizational processes." This book explains the non-linear process for new product development used at Toyota wherein a number of designs and subsystems are developed concurrently.

The Case Against ISO 9000
John Seddon

Intelligent Embedded Systems/Book and Disk
(Hard to Find)

Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge of Technology
James R. Chiles
From Chernobyl to the Challenger, Inviting Disaster explains how breakdowns in systems result in some of the more dramatic technological catastrophes we have withessed over the past several years. Chiles writes on the subjects of science, technology, and history and is a contributor to Smithsonian and Air and Space magazines.

Learning in Embedded Systems
Leslie Pack Kaelbling
Learning to perform complex action strategies is an important problem in the fields of artificial intelligence, robotics, and machine learning. Filled with interesting new experimental results, the book explores algorithms that learn efficiently from trial-and-error experience with an external world.

Mobile Robotics : A Practical Introduction (Applied Computing)
Ulrich Nehmzow
In this book you are introduced to the fundamental concepts of this complex field via twelve detailed case studies which show how to build and program real working robots. This book provides a very practical introduction to mobile robotics for a general scientific audience, and is essential reading for final year undergraduate students and postgraduate students studying Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Science and Robot Engineering. Its update and overview of core concepts in mobile robotics will assist and encourage practitioners of the field, and set challenges to explore new avenues of research in this exciting field.

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