Programmer Musings

Review of The Logic of Failure

The Logic of Failure
Dietrich Döner
Perseus Books, 1996

This is a spectacular book on why people make mistakes. This book gives wonderful insight into design and troubleshooting that you won't get from any traditional book on programming.

A large portion of the book describes how very intelligent people make what seem like blindingly stupid mistakes. It shows how people stop thinking logically when there is a delay in feedback between cause and effect. It also shows how people react when the situation seems to be getting worse despite their efforts. You have probably observed some of these behaviors in people when things really begin to go wrong.

Amusingly enough, a friend of mine pointed out that this book would have been much more successful except for the mistake of focusing the title on failure. With that focus, obviously some of people avoided the book because the don't want to contemplate failure.

Although not a normal book on programming, I would recommend this book to any programmer who needs to do troubleshooting or development under the gun. It may not solve your problems, but it may help you understand when people including you start reacting to a stressful situation.