Pragmatic Geek

According to Larry Wall, the first virtue of a programmer is laziness:

The quality that makes you go to great effort to reduce overall energy expenditure. It makes you write labor-saving programs that other people will find useful, and document what you wrote so you don’t have to answer so many questions about it

I attribute this virtue to Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François, authors of Artisan Bread and Five Minutes a Day.  They went through all the tradition and legend of artisan bread baking, questioning everything, and reduced it to its essence, and then documented it for the rest of the world.  

Unlike all those Dummy books that promise to let you learn X in 24 hours, this book lives up to its title.  It really is 5 minutes a day, and you’ll always have amazing bread to go with your meals.

Amy and I are mere beginners in this endeavor, but nothing has come out less than excellent in our tries.  The folks we share with are all suitably impressed, too.  If you don’t have the book, we highly recommend it, and giving it a try.  

As disclosure, a co-worker of mine, Graham, is married to Zoë.  Other folks on the team have tried this and give equal reviews.  It’s fun to hear his stories of the runaway success of the book.  She also has a blog, covering more details and other delectable edibles.