Hacknot - Book

I liked the book. Written ages ago, by Internet standard, it is a collection of essays on software, written from the point of view of a seasoned software developer. He explains, sometimes seriously, others sarcastically, what he does not like about the industry he works on.
I really enjoyed reading this book, even if I didn't agree with all of it. Probably it was because considerable space is dedicated to one of the great weaknesses of software developers: their infatuation with newness, fashion and coolness. People who are not programmers might think that programmers, when working, do rational and dispassionate decisions about what tools to use, and try to choose what is the best tool for the job. Nothing farthest from the truth.
In reality, programmers tend to gather around technologies the same way people gather around sport clubs or political parties. People choose tools because it has some "philosophy" that appeals to them; they try unproved, buggy technologies on their clients because they are new and cool; there are millions and millions of posts in the internet in quasi-religious discussions around technology that eventually boil down to "fanboyism".
(As a side-note, I was surprised by the positive view about academy, since usually it is the other way around when we hear from industry types. Instead of deriding academic practices as being out-of-touch with reality, he longed for some kind of systematic study and reproducible practices.)