Review of 12 Weeks with Geeks

So Joel finally got his DVD out to me and I had a chance to watch Aardvark'd: 12 Weeks with Geeks last weekend.

I don't have much to report. As a "film" it was well done. (aka: production quality was good). It was interesting watching the 12 weeks progress. Unfortunately, I totally missed the boat on what the content was when I ordered it. I thought it would show the 'Joel on Software' development and testing process for Copilot.com. Although it contained bits, it was more a documentary of the geeks... not the work flow process. Of course, reading the title of the damn DVD should have told you that. *sigh*

I wasn't bored, but I wasn't engaged either. Maybe if I was a 20 something geek again, I might have enjoyed it more. However, it was an amusing approach that showed what its like for an intern to work at a software company these days. And it will probably be a pretty good marketing/recruitment piece for Fog Creek Software.

To be honest, I hoped for more, judging from the fact Joel has interesting stuff I like to read. But that shouldn't distract from the fact that this is a good piece of documentary with a clear storyline. If you are interested in the physics of jumping between buildings, how to grow tomatos in New York and occasionally how to develop and test software, its worth the $20 bucks and an hour of your time.