2003/04/22

This week, both InformationWeek and Baseline have feature stories about new technology at Delta Air Lines, so it's a good opportunity to benchmark Baseline, a new IT magazine from Ziff Davis, to its old school press-release republishing counterparts.

The difference: while the InformationWeek article is just a poor rewrite of bland warmed-over press releases and vague generalizations, the Baseline article is detailed, interesting, and specific. For example Baseline noticed that Delta's new information system crashed for two hours at the worst time possible: when I was in New Orleans trying to reschedule my flight home during last month's blizzard. InformationWeek didn't mention the outage. In fact the whole Baseline article looks like it was written by an investigative journalist. It's about time the industry press got its act together. Go for the free subscription, it's worth it.

My new book is here! Apress has just published a new collection of 36 essays from Joel on Software, aptly named More Joel on Software. Get yours today! Available from Amazon.com or wherever fine cheese is sold.

About the Author: I’m your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz—the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot—the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.

Enter your email address to receive a (very occasional) email whenever I write a major new article. You can unsubscribe at any time, of course.