The Tao of Programming

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The Tao of Programming
Cover page
Author	Geoffrey James
Illustrator	Gloria Garland
Cover artist	Gloria Garland
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject(s)	Computer programming
Genre(s)	Computer programming, Satire
Publisher	InfoBooks
Publication date	1987
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	151
ISBN	0-931137-07-1
Followed by	The Zen of Programming

The Tao of Programming is a book written in 1987 by Geoffrey James. Written in a tongue-in-cheek style spoof of classic Taoist texts such as the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi which belies its serious message. The Tao of Programming consists of a series of short anecdotes divided into nine "books":

The Silent Void
The Ancient Masters
Design
Coding
Maintenance
Management
Corporate Wisdom
Hardware and Software
Epilogue

The themes of the book espouse many hacker ideals – managers should leave programmers to their work; code should be small, elegant, and maintainable; corporate wisdom is more often than not an oxymoron; and so on.

Geoffrey James wrote two more books like The Tao of Programming -- The Zen of Programming in 1988 and Computer Parables: Enlightenment in the Information Age in 1989. However, they have not been as well received.