The Tao of Programming

Infobox Book
name = The Tao of Programming

http://www.geoffreyjames.com/taocover.jpgCover page]
author = Geoffrey James
illustrator = Gloria Garland
cover_artist = Gloria Garland
country = United States
language = English
subject = Computer programming
genre = Computer programming, Satire
publisher = InfoBooks
pub_date = 1987
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 151
isbn = 0-931137-07-1
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 "" in 1989. However, they have not been as well received.

External links

* [http://www.canonical.org/~kragen/tao-of-programming.html An online version of "The Tao of Programming"]
* [http://tal.forum2.org/tao A review of "The Tao of Programming" by Tal Cohen]
* [http://catb.org/~esr/writings/unix-koans/ The Unix Koans of Master Foo] , by Eric S. Raymond, a writing with related tone and argument, as discussed in its introduction