Joel Spolsky

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name = Joel Spolsky

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caption = Joel Spolsky speaking with demonstration attendees, after presenting his company's FogBugz software in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada.
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birth_date = 1965
birth_place = Albuquerque, New Mexico
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nationality = American, New Zealand Dual citizenshipcite web | url=https://stackoverflow.fogbugz.com/default.asp?pg=pgWiki&command=view&ixWikiPage=13020&nRevision=97 | title=StackOverflow podcast#13 | accessdate=2008-07-15 ]
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occupation = Software developer
CEO, Fog Creek Software
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website = http://joel.spolsky.com
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Joel Spolsky (born 1965) is a software engineer and writer. He is the author of "Joel on Software", a blog on software development targeted mainly at writers of Windows software. He was a Program Manager on the Microsoft Excel team between 1991 and 1994 and later founded Fog Creek Software.

Biography

Spolsky grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and lived there until he was 15.cite web | url=http://www.joelonsoftware.com/AboutMe.html | title=About Joel Spolsky | first=Joel | last=Spolsky | date=October 30, 2005 | work=Joel On Software | accessdate=2007-02-02 ] He then moved with his family to Jerusalem, Israel where he attended high school and did his military service as a paratrooper. He was one of the founders of Kibbutz Hanaton in Upper Galilee. [cite web | url=http://joel.spolsky.com/ | title=Joel Spolsky | first=Joel | last=Spolsky | work=joel.spolsky.com | accessdate=2007-02-04 ] In 1987, he returned to the United States to attend college. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania for a year before transferring to Yale University, where he graduated in 1991 with a BS summa cum laude in Computer Science.

Spolsky started working at Microsoft in 1991,cite web | url=http://www.foundersatwork.com/joelspolsky.html | title=Interview: Joel Spolsky Co-Founder, Fog Creek Software | first=Jessica | last=Livingston | date=January 22, 2007 | work=Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days | publisher=Apress | accessdate=2007-02-04 ] as a Program Manager on the Microsoft Excel team, where he designed Excel Basic and drove Microsoft's Visual Basic for Applications strategy.cite web | url=http://www.softletter.com/SMS_archives/joel_spolsky.shtml | title=An Interview with Joel Spolsky | accessdate=2007-09-21 | work=SoftLetter.com ] He moved to New York City in 1995 where he worked for Viacom and Juno. In 2000, he founded Fog Creek Software and created the "Joel on Software" weblog. "Joel on Software" was "one of the first blogs set up by a business owner" [cite web | url=http://www.inc.com/magazine/columns/howhardcoulditbe/index.html | title=How Hard Could it Be | accessdate=2008-04-09 | work=Inc.com ] .

Spolsky has recently started collaborating with Jeff Atwood on " [http://stackoverflow.com Stack Overflow] ", a project to provide a free question and answer community website for software developers.

He is the author of four books, including User Interface Design for Programmers and Smart and Gets Things Done; both of which he has dedicated to his boyfriend, Jared. [cite web | url=http://joelonsoftware.com/news/fog0000000095.html | title=2001/09/11 | last=Spolsky | first=Joel | date=September 11, 2001 | work=Joel On Software | accessdate=2007-02-04 ]

References

Publications

* "User Interface Design for Programmers", Apress, 2001. ISBN 1-893115-94-1
* "Joel on Software: And on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and Managers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity", Apress, 2004. ISBN 1-59059-389-8
* "The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky", Apress, 2005. ISBN 1-59059-500-9
* "Smart and Gets Things Done: Joel Spolsky's Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent", Apress, 2007. ISBN 1-59059-838-5
* "More Joel on Software: Further Thoughts on Diverse and Occasionally Related Matters That Will Prove of Interest to Software Developers, Designers, and to Those Who, Whether by Good Fortune or Ill Luck, Work with Them in Some Capacity", Apress, 2008. ISBN 1430209879

External links

* [http://joel.spolsky.com/ Personal website]
* [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ Joel on Software]
* [http://www.fogcreek.com/ Fog Creek Software]
* [http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/?joel Joel on Software discussion board]
* [http://brevity.org/misc/bestswi.html Links to essays in 'Best Software Writing I']
* [http://stackoverflow.com/ Stackoverflow]