To many of my colleagues and friends, writing a book is at the top of the dream list or life goals. I have been very fortunate to have done that, but quite honestly I never even dreamt that I would do it. Or that someone thought that what I had to say was interesting enough to read it. Maybe I should have realized that after 500,000 views on this blog but still…
Okay, something really strange has now happened. I have been published again. The book is called Architect book, which is even more strange, since I don’t consider myself an architect. At least not on the levels that this book is about.
I was invited to write a chapter about Specification By Example about a year ago. That was a very busy time of my life since I was finishing up Kanban In Action, or at least going through the gruesome and long review process. Also, we were in the middle of moving out of our apartment and here to Indonesia. I had a job that was running out and that I tried to extend month by month as our visas were delayed. It was busy times.
I wrote the chapter a little bit in the same style as we used in Kanban In Action, with a short story about a project failing, to start things off and made a short treatment of each of the main points of Specification by Example. I then wrapped the chapter off by telling the story again. Now the project succeeds… and they are using Specification by Example :)
Still, I don’t know why I said yes in hindsight, I accepted. And wrote my 8 pages in about 6 hours. I have since then spent maybe 6 more hours editing it. All thanks to the amazing work of the editors. Especially Daniel Akenine that held the project together in a great way.
The book takes up a lot of different perspectives and views on architecture in the “IT” business. From business architecture all the way to infrastructure and the little corner I wrote about; Software architecture. A mammoth undertaking that I’m proud to be part of. Some of the chapters are about areas that I didn’t know existed, so it will be an interesting read for me too. The people involved are very well-known and great gals (and guys) all around.
The book, that looks great and very serious, is so far only in Swedish. But Swedish is not that hard. I picked it up when I was under 5 years old :)
I’m proud to have been part of this project, in a small small way. Thank you for asking me and letting me.