Princeton University Press Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough

"Contrary to much of the popular discourse, not all technology is seamless and awesome; some of it is simply "good enough." In Middle Tech, Paula Bialski offers an ethnographic study of software developers at a non-flashy, non-start-up corporate tech company. Their stories reveal why software isn't perfect and how developers communicate, care, and compromise to make software work--or at least work until the next update. Exploring the culture of good enoughness at a technology firm she calls "MiddleTech," Bialski shows how doing good-enough work is a collectively negotiated resistance to the organizational ideology found in corporate software settings." -- Provided by publisher.