Changing Software Development


Book Description

Changing Software Development explains why software development is an exercise in change management and organizational intelligence. An underlying belief is that change is learning and learning creates knowledge. By blending the theory of knowledge management, developers and managers will gain the tools to enhance learning and change to accommodate new innovative approaches such as agile and lean computing. Changing Software Development is peppered with practical advice and case studies to explain how and why knowledge, learning and change are important in the development process. Today, managers are pre-occupied with knowledge management, organization learning and change management; while software developers are often ignorant of the bigger issues embedded in their work. This innovative book bridges this divide by linking the software world of technology and processes to the business world of knowledge, learning and change.




Working Effectively with Legacy Code


Book Description

Get more out of your legacy systems: more performance, functionality, reliability, and manageability Is your code easy to change? Can you get nearly instantaneous feedback when you do change it? Do you understand it? If the answer to any of these questions is no, you have legacy code, and it is draining time and money away from your development efforts. In this book, Michael Feathers offers start-to-finish strategies for working more effectively with large, untested legacy code bases. This book draws on material Michael created for his renowned Object Mentor seminars: techniques Michael has used in mentoring to help hundreds of developers, technical managers, and testers bring their legacy systems under control. The topics covered include Understanding the mechanics of software change: adding features, fixing bugs, improving design, optimizing performance Getting legacy code into a test harness Writing tests that protect you against introducing new problems Techniques that can be used with any language or platform—with examples in Java, C++, C, and C# Accurately identifying where code changes need to be made Coping with legacy systems that aren't object-oriented Handling applications that don't seem to have any structure This book also includes a catalog of twenty-four dependency-breaking techniques that help you work with program elements in isolation and make safer changes.




Software Engineering at Google


Book Description

Today, software engineers need to know not only how to program effectively but also how to develop proper engineering practices to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. This book emphasizes this difference between programming and software engineering. How can software engineers manage a living codebase that evolves and responds to changing requirements and demands over the length of its life? Based on their experience at Google, software engineers Titus Winters and Hyrum Wright, along with technical writer Tom Manshreck, present a candid and insightful look at how some of the world’s leading practitioners construct and maintain software. This book covers Google’s unique engineering culture, processes, and tools and how these aspects contribute to the effectiveness of an engineering organization. You’ll explore three fundamental principles that software organizations should keep in mind when designing, architecting, writing, and maintaining code: How time affects the sustainability of software and how to make your code resilient over time How scale affects the viability of software practices within an engineering organization What trade-offs a typical engineer needs to make when evaluating design and development decisions




Dynamics of Software Development


Book Description

Provides a candid look at the ups and downs of software development, providing tips on how to ship great software on. The book is divided into five sections that chart the progress from initial design to successful product. The Adobe Reader format of this title is not suitable for use on the Pocket PC or Palm OS versions of Adobe Reader.




Managing Software Debt


Book Description

Shipping imperfect software is like going into debt. When you incur debt, the illusion of doing things faster can lead to exponential growth in the cost of maintaining software. Software debt takes five major forms: technical, quality, configuration management, design, and platform experience. In today’s rush to market, software debt is inevitable. And that’s okay—if you’re careful about the debt you incur, and if you quickly pay it back. In Managing Software Debt, leading Agile expert Chris Sterling shows how understanding software debt can help you move products to market faster, with a realistic plan for refactoring them based on experience. Writing for all Agile software professionals, Sterling explains why you’re going into software debt whether you know it or not—and why the interest on that debt can bring projects to a standstill. Next, he thoroughly explains each form of software debt, showing how to plan for it intelligently and repay it successfully. You’ll learn why accepting software debt is not the same as deliberate sloppiness, and you’ll learn how to use the software debt concept to systematically improve architectural agility. Coverage includes Managing tensions between speed and perfection and recognizing that you’ll inevitably ship some “not quite right” code Planning to minimize interest payments by paying debts quickly Building architectures that respond to change and help enterprises run more smoothly Incorporating emergent architecture concepts into daily activities, using Agile collaboration and refactoring techniques Delivering code and other software internals that reduce the friction of future change Using early, automated testing to move past the “break/fix” mentality Scripting and streamlining both deployment and rollback Implementing team configuration patterns and knowledge sharing approaches that make software debt easier to repay Clearing away technical impediments in existing architectures Using the YAGNI (“you ain’t gonna need it”) approach to strip away unnecessary complexity Using this book’s techniques, senior software leadership can deliver more business value; managers can organize and support development teams more effectively; and teams and team members can improve their performance throughout the development lifecycle.




Code Simplicity


Book Description

Good software design is simple and easy to understand. Unfortunately, the average computer program today is so complex that no one could possibly comprehend how all the code works. This concise guide helps you understand the fundamentals of good design through scientific laws—principles you can apply to any programming language or project from here to eternity. Whether you’re a junior programmer, senior software engineer, or non-technical manager, you’ll learn how to create a sound plan for your software project, and make better decisions about the pattern and structure of your system. Discover why good software design has become the missing science Understand the ultimate purpose of software and the goals of good design Determine the value of your design now and in the future Examine real-world examples that demonstrate how a system changes over time Create designs that allow for the most change in the environment with the least change in the software Make easier changes in the future by keeping your code simpler now Gain better knowledge of your software’s behavior with more accurate tests




Head First Software Development


Book Description

Provides information on successful software development, covering such topics as customer requirements, task estimates, principles of good design, dealing with source code, system testing, and handling bugs.




Breaking the Code


Book Description

If you want to land a job in tech, you need to know how to code. That much is obvious. A skill that is equally as important-but often overlooked-is knowing how to market yourself to potential employers, especially if you're new to the industry. Do you know how to land interviews and deliver a compelling case for why you should be hired? Bobby Davis Jr. has helped place hundreds of aspiring coders into high-paying tech jobs. In Breaking the Code, he shares the proven strategies he uses with his students and offers up insider tips that will make you stand out from the competition. You'll learn how to avoid the biggest stumbling block when it comes to landing a job and what you should build before an interview if you don't have a project to show. Bobby also teaches you the secret to accessing jobs not found on corporate job boards and exponentially increasing your chances of getting the job you want. The path to $100,000 a year-and infinite possibilities beyond that-begins with Breaking the Code.




Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming


Book Description

The XP conference series established in 2000 was the first conference dedicated to agile processes in software engineering. The idea of the conference is to offer a unique setting for advancing the state of the art in the research and practice of agile processes. This year’s conference was the ninth consecutive edition of this international event. The conference has grown to be the largest conference on agile software development outside North America. The XP conference enjoys being one of those conferences that truly brings practitioners and academics together. About 70% of XP participants come from industry and the number of academics has grown steadily over the years. XP is more of an experience rather than a regular conference. It offers several different ways to interact and strives to create a truly collaborative environment where new ideas and exciting findings can be presented and shared. For example, this year’s open space session, which was “a conference within a conference”, was larger than ever before. Agile software development is a unique phenomenon from several perspectives.




Extreme Programming Explained


Book Description

Accountability. Transparency. Responsibility. These are not words that are often applied to software development. In this completely revised introduction to Extreme Programming (XP), Kent Beck describes how to improve your software development by integrating these highly desirable concepts into your daily development process. The first edition of Extreme Programming Explained is a classic. It won awards for its then-radical ideas for improving small-team development, such as having developers write automated tests for their own code and having the whole team plan weekly. Much has changed in five years. This completely rewritten second edition expands the scope of XP to teams of any size by suggesting a program of continuous improvement based on.