Ask the Author: Tom DeMarco

“Ask me a question.” Tom DeMarco

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Your books and writings, along with Ed Yourdon's have been the guiding light for past 18 years of my career. Thank you for that. It seems the current generation has forgotten your lessons and has refused to learn from mistakes made. How do you propose we make it relevant to the 2-second-attention-span generation?

Tom DeMarco I'm much less discouraged than you seem to be. All progress is incremental; the changes I've seen in organizational structure over the years make me feel that Peopleware and Slack are both having huge impact. The still very fat royalty statements show that the books continue to sell incredibly well. Same for The Deadline. As to the occasional setback, it just proves that big problems are big.

Best Regards,

t.

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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?

Tom DeMarco This sounds awful, but write for television.
When I decided to become a writer Hemingway was still writing, Muriel Spark and J.G. Farrell and Iris Murdoch were contending for the Booker Prize, Saturday Review and The Atlantic were crammed with short stories. Today much of that kind of talent has moved over to film and most of all television. The great advantage of writing for television is long form fiction. It's a rare book that can be published at more than 300 pages, but TV stories are developed over years: You probably know Tony Soprano better than you know some members of your own family . . .

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