Firefox/Reading Group

Mission

Every month (or so) we choose one book (or a set of articles/essays) to read, then get together to discuss it. Ideas for topics include programming, engineering, design, etc. Basically anything that makes us better software developers.

Mailing List

If you're interested in participating, please join our mailing list: https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-reading

Discussions

Discussions will take place approximately on the last Friday of every month.

Current Reading

• August/September 2013: The Architecture of Open Source Applications, Volume I
• Discussion: Friday, September 6, 11am PDT (Margaret's Vidyo room, SFO-7B The Warfield)
• Discussion notes: https://etherpad.mozilla.org/aosa
• Selected chapters for discussion
  • http://www.aosabook.org/en/bdb.html
  • http://www.aosabook.org/en/llvm.html
  • http://www.aosabook.org/en/mercurial.html
  • http://www.aosabook.org/en/sendmail.html

Past Reading

• January 2013: Effective JavaScript by Dave Herman (discussion notes)
• February 2013: Unwritten Laws of Engineering (discussion notes)
• March 2013: Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project
• April/May 2013: The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond (discussion notes)
• June/July 2013: Purely Functional Data Structures by Chris Okasaki

Ideas for Future Reading

• Psychology of Computer Programming
• Silence on the Wire: A Field Guide to Passive Reconnaissance and Indirect Attacks
• How Google Tests Software
• Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It
• Violent Python
• Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
• Essential COM
• Joel on Software
• Dreaming in Code
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar (pretty short - 1 week to read? :D)
• Peopleware

Books from other disciplines that have influenced software:

• The Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander
• How Buildings Learn by Stewart Brand