Frequently Asked Questions

Your new website doesn't look right on IE6.

Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) is old and does not comply with modern web standards. As a result it's a lot of effort to make web sites look good with it and still work well with modern browsers. This, together with the fact that only 3% or so of my traffic comes from IE6, leads me to not try to support IE6. As a result the site will look awkward in IE6. However I do realize that many people have to use IE6 due to corporate standards. Thus I have tried to make the site usable with IE6, even though it will not look as good.

Are you writing another book?

At the moment I've just finished a book on Domain Specific Languages. That was quite enough for a while, but I'm sure I'll be working on another one soon.

I have written an article or framework based on your work, would you review it for me?

Sadly I pretty much always have a large list of material to look at, so I'll almost certainly not have time to read it. (A particular point to this, don't send me Microsoft Word documents. Since Microsoft Office documents can contain executable code they may contain malware. As a result I never open Office documents from strangers, and I would strongly advise you not to as well.)

Where can I download code from your books?

None of my books have downloadable code in any edible form. See CodeExamples.

Can we persuade you to speak at our conference?

I'm afraid you almost certainly can't. I've given too many talks over the years and have become sick of speaking. So now I hardly ever say yes to speaking requests. You'll notice I didn't say 'never', so there is a chance, but most of the time I prefer not.

I would like you to write an article for my magazine or web site.

At the moment I only write for my own web site (and don't do enough of that).

Can I get some advice from you about a problem I'm wrestling with?

Almost certainly I can't help much with dealing with issues over email. Like most things is due to lack of time - I'd rather concentrate my time on my writing. Digging into a problem over email is inherently hard - particularly the kind of design stuff I work on, so even questions that seem simple to answer (such as "which persistence framework should I use?") require a lot of back and forth to answer. In general you would be better off getting some help from my colleagues at ThoughtWorks. After all most of what I do these days is steal ideas from them. (For very useful general advice about asking questions over the net make sure you read this.)

I've found an error in one of your books or articles, how do I let you know?

If it's a book, first check the errata page for the book (linked from my books page). If it's not mentioned there then email me and I will get it fixed one way or the other.

Can I republish one of your web articles on my web site?

The short answer is no. The world-wide-web is all about linking and I don't see any advantage to a reader over providing a link to my original, where people can see it in its proper context and there's no danger of missing updates.

Can I translate one of your web articles?

Yes. I'm happy for people to do translations. All I ask is that you put a link to the original article and the date of the translation in the translation. (The date helps people spot if I've changed the article since the translation.) Once you've done that please let me know and I will link to it in my paper, (but that may take a while if I'm busy traveling). The only exception to this is material that I'm working into a book, such as the (admittedly stalled) EAA development work. I have to be careful with these since they will be published commercially.

Is there a way to add comments to your blog?

Sadly no. Part of the reason is I'd have to write that capability (since the bliki is all custom code). But the main reason is that I don't want to deal with comment spam. If you have thoughts, do email me, but don't expect a rapid answer.

Are your books available in an electronic form?

You can get hold my books online via Safari. Some books are also available in kindle and epub formats, see Amazon and InformIT

Do you have slides available for a talk you've given?

I design slides to be visual aids while I'm talking - as a consequence they don't make any sense without me speaking. I do keep a page of talk notes where you can find pointers to articles that can as a reference and further information on topics I usually talk about.

Do you have slide presentations for your books?

I don't have anything available, and if I did they would not designed to be read without me or usable by others.

I have this tool that I think you would really be interested in - will you take a look?

As with so many things, lack of time means that I rarely get the chance to take a look at software tools. In particular it isn't part of my role at ThoughtWorks to do tool evaluations - indeed the reverse is true. The best way to get me interested in a tool is when a project or two at TW uses it and I start hearing good things from the trenches. I've seen (and done) too many demos to believe you can ever learn about the real value of a tool without trying it out on a real project.