Xagronaut

. Unlike architects (who figure out what to build) and engineers (who figure out how), great hackers and painters do both. Who makes a good hacker and how can you identify a good hacker/programmer in a job interview? Why is empathy an important skill for programmers? As a hacker who also studied painting in Europe, Paul may be uniquely qualified to write a book entitled Hackers and Painters

. If you leave your day programming job only to get home and write more code, this is a great book for you. []

to a new book on Software Development.

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Issues for global IT outsourcing. InfoWorld discusses issues surrounding global IT outsourcing.

It’s tempting to believe global outsourcing is as simple as “specs in, widgets out,” jokes Brian Behlendorf , co-founder of Brisbane, Calif.-based CollabNet — an ASP that supports distributed software development — and co-founder of the Apache Software Foundation. Behlendorf points out, however, that in reality things never work that way. “Those specs and widgets are embedded in a complex and subtle framework of collaboration.”

They also go on to discuss some lessons IT managers can learn from open-source development projects. [The Job Blog]