I finished reading Steve Wozniak’s books today – iWoz. It’s a great read if you are a developer, programmer, engineer, designer…pretty much anybody that builds things.
I thought there were some big gaps, such as why he wasn’t involved in the Apple III – but I didn’t read it to get a historical perspective, more to understand Woz and the way he works.
The biggest take away from the book – if you want to build things that are different – work alone. Design by committee leads to generalized pieces of crap! Whenever I think of a project these days I ask myself whether it is something I can design and build myself – or will it need others. If it’s something I can take forward by myself then it is something I might work on. May be I’ll need a little design work doing here and there – but those can be contracted out as one off pieces.
Great book – should definitely be on any hackers bookshelf.