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Michael C. Feathers
The average book on Agile software development describes a fairyland of greenfield projects, with wall-to-wall tests that run after every few edits, and clean & simple source code.
The average software project, in our industry, was written under some aspect of code-and-fix, and without automated unit tests. And we can't just throw this code away; it represents a significant effort debugging and maintaining. It contains many latent requirements decisions. Just as Agile processes are incremental, Agile adoption must be incremental too. No more throwing away code just because it looked at us funny.
Mike begins his book with a very diplomatic definition of "Legacy". I'l skip ahead to the undiplomatic version: Legacy code is code without unit tests.
Before cleaning that code up, and before adding new features and removing bugs, such code must be de-legacified. It needs unit tests.
To add unit tests, you must change the code. To change the code, you need unit tests to show how safe your change was.
The core of the book is a cookbook of recipes to conduct various careful attacks. Each presents a particular problem, and a relatively safe way to migrate the code towards tests.
Code undergoing this migration will begin to experience the benefits of unit tests, and these benefits will incrementally make new tests easier to write. These efforts will make aspects of a legacy codebase easy to change.
It's an unfortunate commentary on the state of our programming industry how much we need this book.
Robert C. Martin
An extremely pragmatic method for writing better code from the start, and ultimately producing more robust applications.
Steve McConnell
Features the best practices in the art and science of constructing software--topics include design, applying good techniques to construction, eliminating errors, planning, managing construction activities, and relating personal character to superior software. Original. (Intermediate)
Martin Fowler, Kent Beck
Users can dramatically improve the design, performance, and manageability of object-oriented code without altering its interfaces or behavior. "Refactoring" shows users exactly how to spot the best opportunities for refactoring and exactly how to do it, step by step.
Eric Freeman, Elisabeth Freeman, Kathy Sierra, Bert Bates
Provides design patterns to help with software development using the Java programming language.
Kent Beck
Write clean code that works with the help of this groundbreaking software method. Example-driven teaching is the basis of Beck's step-by-step instruction that will have readers using TDD to further their projects.
John Lakos
In designing large-scale C++ applications, you are entering a dimension barely skimmed by most C++ books, particularly considering experience with small programming projects does not scale up to larger projects. This book unites high-level design concepts with specific C++ programming details to reveal practical methods for planning and implementing high-quality large C++ systems. You will learn the importance of physical design in large systems, how to structure your software as an acyclic hierarchy of components, and techniques for reducing link-time and compile-time dependencies. Then the book turns to logical design issues--architecting a component, designing a function, and implementing an object--all in the context of a large-project environment.
Roy Osherove
A guide to the concept of unit testing provides step-by-step instructions and covers such topics as test patterns and organization, legacy code, mock objects, and automated frameworks.
Steve Krug
Web-usability expert Steve Krug updates his classic guide to designing intuitive navigation for the ideal user experience.
Brett McLaughlin, Gary Pollice, David West
Provides information on analyzing, designing, and writing object-oriented software.
Scott W. Ambler, Pramod J. Sadalage
Brings agile/object developers and database administrators together to develop a common language for better database design and change.
Jon Skeet
A guide to the key topics of C# covers such topics as lambda expressions, LINQ, generics, nullable types, iterators, and extension methods.
Steve McConnell
Covers software estimation techniques with information on how to successfully estimate scheduling, cost, and project activities.
Jez Humble, David Farley
The step-by-step guide to going live with new software releases faster - reducing risk and delivering more value sooner! * *Fast, simple, repeatable techniques for deploying working code to production in hours or days, not months! *Crafting custom processes that get developers from idea to value faster than ever. *Best practices for everything from source code control to dependency management and in-production tracing. *Common obstacles to rapid release - and pragmatic solutions. In too many organizations, build, testing, and deployment processes can take six months or more. That's simply far too long for today's businesses. But it doesn't have to be that way. It's possible to deploy working code to production in hours or days after development work is complete - and Go Live presents comprehensive processes and techniques for doing so. Written by two of the world's most experienced software project leaders, this book demonstrates how to dramatically increase speed while reducing risk and improving code quality at the same time. The authors cover all facets of build, testing, and deployment, including: configuration management, source code control, release planning, auditing, compliance, integration, build automation, and more. They introduce a wide range of advanced techniques, including inproduction monitoring and tracing, dependency management, and the effective use of virtualization. For each area, they explain the issues, show how to mitigate the risks, and present best practices. Throughout, Go Live focuses on powerful opportunities for individual improvement, clearly and simply explaining skills and techniques so they can be used every day on real projects. With this book's help, any development organization can move from idea to release faster -- and deliver far more value, far more rapidly.
Mike Cohn
Goes beyond the strategy of just enough planning and estimating, and shows readers how to make agile practices truly work organizationally.
Mike Cohn
"Offers a requirements process that saves time, eliminates rework, and leads directly to better software. A great way to build software that meets users' needs is to begin with 'user stories': simple, clear, brief descriptions of functionality that will be valuable to real users. ... [the author] provides you with a front-to-back blueprint for writing these user stories and weaving them into your development lifecycle. You'll learn what makes a great user story, and what makes a bad one. You'll discover practical ways to gather user stories, even when you can't speak with your users. Then, once you've compiled your user stories, [the author] shows how to organize them, prioritize them, and use them for planning, management, and testing"--Back cover.
Norman L. Kerth
Use Team-Based Review Sessions to Maximize What You Learn from Each Project With detailed scenarios, imaginative illustrations, and step-by-step instructions, consultant and speaker Norman L. Kerth guides readers through productive, empowering retrospectives of project performance. Whether your shop calls them postmortems or postpartums or something else, project retrospectives offer organizations a formal method for preserving the valuable lessons learned from the successes and failures of every project. These lessons and the changes identified by the community will foster stronger teams and savings on subsequent efforts. For a retrospective to be effective and successful, though, it needs to be safe. Kerth shows facilitators and participants how to defeat the fear of retribution and establish an air of mutual trust. One tool is Kerth's Prime Directive: Regardless of what we discover, we must understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand. Applying years of experience as a project retrospective facilitator for software organizations, Kerth reveals his secrets for managing the sensitive, often emotionally charged issues that arise as teams relive and learn from each project. Don't move on to your next project without consulting and using this readable, practical handbook. Each member of your team will be better prepared for the next deadline.
Frederick Phillips Brooks
No book on software project management has been as influential and timeless as The Mythical Man-Month. Blending software engineering facts with thought-provoking personal opinions, author Fred Brooks offers insight into managing the development of complex computer systems. In this twentieth anniversary edition, the original text is accompanied by Fred Brooks' current advice and thoughts based on the newest developments in the computer industry. In four added chapters, including his 1986 article, No Silver Bullet, Brooks asks whether there is yet a silver bullet for software productivity and gives his latest opinions on the mythical man-month.
Steve McConnell
Project managers, technical leads, and Windows programmers throughout the industry share an important concern--how to get their development schedules under control. Rapid Development addresses that concern head-on with philosophy, techniques, and tools that help shrink and control development schedules and keep projects moving. The style is friendly and conversational--and the content is impressive.
Michael T. Nygard
Provides information on ways to effectively design and release an application.
Karl Eugene Wiegers
Describes techniques for the requirements engineering process through the entire development process.
Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle
Arguably the most important book about managing technology and systems development efforts, this book describes building systems using the deceptively simple process, Scrum. Readers will come to understand a new approach to systems development projects that cuts through the complexity and ambiguity of complex, emergent requirements and unstable technology to iteratively and quickly produce quality software. BENEFITS Learn how to immediately start producing software incrementally regardless of existing engineering practices or methodologies Learn how to simplify the implementation of Agile processes Learn how to simplify XP implementation through a Scrum wrapper Learn why Agile processes work and how to manage them Understand the theoretical underpinnings of Agile processes
Chris Shiflett
"PHP Web Application Security" helps readers build secure Web applications, using Apache and MySQL along with PHP 5. The book details the attacks that hackers use against Web sites, and shows how to correctly configure Apache and PHP to guard against them.
Robert L. Glass
Regarding the controversial and thought-provoking assessments in this handbook, many software professionals might disagree with the authors, but all will embrace the debate. Glass identifies many of the key problems hampering success in this field. Each fact is supported by insightful discussion and detailed references.
Kent Beck, Martin Fowler
A guide to XP leads the developer, project manager, and team leader through the software development planning process, offering real world examples and tips for reacting to changing environments quickly and efficiently.
Steve McConnell
Looks at a successful software project and provides details for software development for clients using object-oriented design and programming.
John Allspaw
Success on the web is measured by usage and growth. Web-based companies live or die by the ability to scale their infrastructure to accommodate increasing demand. This book is a hands-on and practical guide to planning for such growth, with many techniques and considerations to help you plan, deploy, and manage web application infrastructure. The Art of Capacity Planning is written by the manager of data operations for the world-famous photo-sharing site Flickr.com, now owned by Yahoo! John Allspaw combines personal anecdotes from many phases of Flickr's growth with insights from his colleagues in many other industries to give you solid guidelines for measuring your growth, predicting trends, and making cost-effective preparations. Topics include: Evaluating tools for measurement and deployment Capacity analysis and prediction for storage, database, and application servers Designing architectures to easily add and measure capacity Handling sudden spikes Predicting exponential and explosive growth How cloud services such as EC2 can fit into a capacity strategy In this book, Allspaw draws on years of valuable experience, starting from the days when Flickr was relatively small and had to deal with the typical growth pains and cost/performance trade-offs of a typical company with a Web presence. The advice he offers in The Art of Capacity Planning will not only help you prepare for explosive growth, it will save you tons of grief.
Mike Cohn
Provides recommendations and case studies to help with the implementation of Scrum.
David J. Anderson
"Kanban is becoming a popular way to visualize and limit work-in-progress in software development and information technology work. Teams around the world are adding Kanban around their existing processes to catalyze cultural change and deliver better business agility. David J. Anderson pioneered the Kanban Method. Hear how this happened and what you can do to succeed using Kanban."--Publisher's website.