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Getting Real: The smarter, faster, easier way to build a successful web application
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(12 customer reviews)
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Product Details
Language : English (Unknown) , English (Original Language) , English (Published)
Number Of Items : 1
NumberOfPages : 194
Media : Paperback
Package Dimensions (in) : 0.6 x 6 x 8.9
Author : Jason Fried
Catagory : Book
Sales Rank : 18119
EAN : 9780578012810
ASIN : 0578012812
Language : English (Unknown) , English (Original Language) , English (Published)
Number Of Items : 1
NumberOfPages : 194
Media : Paperback
Package Dimensions (in) : 0.6 x 6 x 8.9
Author : Jason Fried
Catagory : Book
Sales Rank : 18119
EAN : 9780578012810
ASIN : 0578012812
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Product Description
Getting Real details the business, design, programming, and marketing principles of 37signals. The book is packed with keep-it-simple insights, contrarian points of view, and unconventional approaches to software design. This is not a technical book or a design tutorial, it's a book of ideas. Anyone working on a web app -- including entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, executives, or marketers -- will find value and inspiration in this book. 37signals used the Getting Real process to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no outside funding, no debt, and only 7 people (distributed across 7 time zones). Over 500,000 people around the world use these applications to get things done. Now you can find out how they did it and how you can do it too. It's not as hard as you think if you Get Real.
Getting Real details the business, design, programming, and marketing principles of 37signals. The book is packed with keep-it-simple insights, contrarian points of view, and unconventional approaches to software design. This is not a technical book or a design tutorial, it's a book of ideas. Anyone working on a web app -- including entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, executives, or marketers -- will find value and inspiration in this book. 37signals used the Getting Real process to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no outside funding, no debt, and only 7 people (distributed across 7 time zones). Over 500,000 people around the world use these applications to get things done. Now you can find out how they did it and how you can do it too. It's not as hard as you think if you Get Real.
Customer Reviews
(12 customer reviews)
Excellent book, 2010-08-21
This book is simple and inspiring. I like that it's simple because it's something that I can read with my girlfriend and she gets it even though she's not a business or tech person. I like that it's inspiring because it motivates me to get stuff done. There's a great sense of personality from the writers as well which makes it very fun to read.
An Eyeopener, 2010-06-24
I must said that "Getting Real" was an eye opener for me, although I read this book after I read the newest one: Rework. Still Getting real is a great book for all young and old software entrepreneurs that want to challenge the status quo and become owners of their own work by getting real.
useful stuff, but lack of humility and self-awareness of their own stardom is disconcerting, 2010-06-07
(Since everyone seems to have given it 5 stars, I am going to be different).
The world is hungry for a messiah.
Too many such books are written that become fads for a few years, and then everyone slowly realises the holes in their message and they are soon forgotten. Then the next 'messiah' comes along.
Whenever I pick up a "How To" book, I now (older and more cynical), look at the credentials of the author.
For example, most "How to succeed" authors are only good at spinning great prose.
Most are themselves unsuccessful except for the book they are trying to sell to me that is supposed to teach me how to be successful.
To be sure, the 37 signals authors have a certain success; but to speak with the confidence of an oracle?
Reading the book, I did not find them saying "We dont really know" or "We are unsure".
I would have preferred quotes from Facebook/Youtube founders, instead of so many from names like Blinklist - and they seem to have closed down.
Ever wondered (like me) why the world's billionaires never seem to write books on "How to succeed and get rich"?
The book had useful stuff, but I wonder how much will remain in 10 years. I also wonder what the Real Successes (Ellison, Dell, Gates, Helu, Buffet...) would really say about this book's content in private.
Ruby On Rails has nowhere near the reliability, scalability and customer base of Apache.
Yet their contributors are out of the limelight, unheard of and unseen. I wish I could hear their perspective.
In other words, I hope this book was not written to enrich themselves, but to genuinely spread value from their experiences. But a lack of humility and self-awareness of their own stardom is disconcerting.
The most useful idea I got was keeping the code base small - fewer features and less customization.
I disagreed with:
1) It is a myth that big companies are slow. Google, Dell, Amazon, Apple, IBM are as sharp and nimble as any startup. In fact, second-to-market is better than being first.
2) "Scratch your own itch" to come up with a new product has a flip side to it, known as "Reinventing the wheel". This has in the past resulted in homegrown custom 'solutions' rather than packaged software. How about changing your processes to match what's available?
3) Designing for today means "if-then-else" coding. Inflexible and unmaintainable. Throw out your Design Patterns and the past 30 years of understanding software design. I say, when you design, think about today and the next 6 months also.
4) Refactoring - changing designs and code is hard. Learning new stuff (at least for me!) takes time. Their essays read like you can change on a dime. Nice prose.
Solid, inspirational information if you're building software, 2010-05-07
I really enjoyed reading 'Getting Real' because I felt like it allowed me to let go of preconceptions about what software should and shouldn't be. Overall, I felt like the information was extremely practical and in many ways enlightening, though at times I did feel like the authors staunch resistance to outside influence was a little extreme. If you're in the process of building web-based software, I would recommend this book highly (and have) over their more recent title 'ReWork'. Both books are cut from the same cloth, but ReWork is definitely more general in it's approach and made into a picture book. Both contain almost the exact same information, it's just that 'Getting Real' seemed to have more gems worth highlighting and sharing with my team. The only reason I didn't rate this book 5 stars, though it probably deserves it, is the fairly extreme outlook of choosing no features over features and remaining closed off from outside (user) influence. But what do I know, I'm not the one making millions running my web based super-simple project management software. Get this book.
"A draft of ReWork", 2010-04-23
Overall - nice book. But in fact, it looks like a draft of 'ReWork'. I'll say, you'll find at least 50% of its content in ReWork.
For my taste, 'ReWork' a bit better, not only because of hardcover, but also because of its content.
View All Customer
(12 customer reviews) Excellent book, 2010-08-21 This book is simple and inspiring. I like that it's simple because it's something that I can read with my girlfriend and she gets it even though she's not a business or tech person. I like that it's inspiring because it motivates me to get stuff done. There's a great sense of personality from the writers as well which makes it very fun to read.
An Eyeopener, 2010-06-24 I must said that "Getting Real" was an eye opener for me, although I read this book after I read the newest one: Rework. Still Getting real is a great book for all young and old software entrepreneurs that want to challenge the status quo and become owners of their own work by getting real.
useful stuff, but lack of humility and self-awareness of their own stardom is disconcerting, 2010-06-07 (Since everyone seems to have given it 5 stars, I am going to be different).
The world is hungry for a messiah.
Too many such books are written that become fads for a few years, and then everyone slowly realises the holes in their message and they are soon forgotten. Then the next 'messiah' comes along.
Whenever I pick up a "How To" book, I now (older and more cynical), look at the credentials of the author.
For example, most "How to succeed" authors are only good at spinning great prose.
Most are themselves unsuccessful except for the book they are trying to sell to me that is supposed to teach me how to be successful.
To be sure, the 37 signals authors have a certain success; but to speak with the confidence of an oracle?
Reading the book, I did not find them saying "We dont really know" or "We are unsure".
I would have preferred quotes from Facebook/Youtube founders, instead of so many from names like Blinklist - and they seem to have closed down.
Ever wondered (like me) why the world's billionaires never seem to write books on "How to succeed and get rich"?
The book had useful stuff, but I wonder how much will remain in 10 years. I also wonder what the Real Successes (Ellison, Dell, Gates, Helu, Buffet...) would really say about this book's content in private.
Ruby On Rails has nowhere near the reliability, scalability and customer base of Apache.
Yet their contributors are out of the limelight, unheard of and unseen. I wish I could hear their perspective.
In other words, I hope this book was not written to enrich themselves, but to genuinely spread value from their experiences. But a lack of humility and self-awareness of their own stardom is disconcerting.
The most useful idea I got was keeping the code base small - fewer features and less customization.
I disagreed with:
1) It is a myth that big companies are slow. Google, Dell, Amazon, Apple, IBM are as sharp and nimble as any startup. In fact, second-to-market is better than being first.
2) "Scratch your own itch" to come up with a new product has a flip side to it, known as "Reinventing the wheel". This has in the past resulted in homegrown custom 'solutions' rather than packaged software. How about changing your processes to match what's available?
3) Designing for today means "if-then-else" coding. Inflexible and unmaintainable. Throw out your Design Patterns and the past 30 years of understanding software design. I say, when you design, think about today and the next 6 months also.
4) Refactoring - changing designs and code is hard. Learning new stuff (at least for me!) takes time. Their essays read like you can change on a dime. Nice prose.
Solid, inspirational information if you're building software, 2010-05-07 I really enjoyed reading 'Getting Real' because I felt like it allowed me to let go of preconceptions about what software should and shouldn't be. Overall, I felt like the information was extremely practical and in many ways enlightening, though at times I did feel like the authors staunch resistance to outside influence was a little extreme. If you're in the process of building web-based software, I would recommend this book highly (and have) over their more recent title 'ReWork'. Both books are cut from the same cloth, but ReWork is definitely more general in it's approach and made into a picture book. Both contain almost the exact same information, it's just that 'Getting Real' seemed to have more gems worth highlighting and sharing with my team. The only reason I didn't rate this book 5 stars, though it probably deserves it, is the fairly extreme outlook of choosing no features over features and remaining closed off from outside (user) influence. But what do I know, I'm not the one making millions running my web based super-simple project management software. Get this book.
"A draft of ReWork", 2010-04-23 Overall - nice book. But in fact, it looks like a draft of 'ReWork'. I'll say, you'll find at least 50% of its content in ReWork.
For my taste, 'ReWork' a bit better, not only because of hardcover, but also because of its content.
View All Customer