10.4. Software Lore

Software developers are mostly ignorant of software lore. Because technology moves so quickly, developers have to struggle to keep up with all the changes. What could some ancient (relatively, that is) technology tell me about the kinds of problems I need to solve right now?

Certainly reading a book about the syntax of Smalltalk isn’t going to help you if you write only in Java or C#. But all Smalltalk books don’t have just syntax in them: they have the hard-won lessons of the developers who were using a brand-new technology (object-oriented languages) for the first time.