I was reading this post over at Joel on Software and I was reminded how much I appreciate Joel Spolsky. Joel started writing about software and the experience of running a company back in 2000, and his blog is one of the only blogs that has stayed on my reading list for six years running.

I enjoy Joel’s writing for a number of reasons. First of all, his opinions are always backed by his experiences. So in the aforementioned post, he simply relates how putting programmers in offices has worked well for him. He gives examples of how he has tried different approaches and what has worked well. He isn’t a zealot about it — just relating what he has discovered.

Second, Joel consistently writes about very relevant problems. He writes about issues he encounters as he works through them and gives unique visibility into the goings on of a small business. He takes the time to share (a very hard thing to find time to do) and as a result we all benefit.

Finally, I really like Joel’s approach to software and management. I love that he has been successful with a bug tracker — perhaps the most saturated market in software. I love that he doesn’t fill out RFP’s. I love how passionate he is about what he does. You can feel his excitement when he talks about projects like copilot, FogBugz’s intern project last summer or his attempts to efficiently mail thousands of DVD orders.

Joel still has the best explanation of unicode I have ever read. The fact that I have to re-read it every couple months has everything to do with my denseness and nothing to do with his writing. That and character encoding is harder to understand than particle physics.

Agree or disagree with Joel, I think he deserves props for his contributions.

Thanks Joel. I raise my “perhaps a little too early in the afternoon to be having a glass of wine” glass of wine to you.