Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World

by Venkat Subramaniam, Andy Hunt

Overview

These are the proven, effective agile practices that will make you a better developer. You'll learn pragmatic ways of approaching the development process and your personal coding techniques. You'll learn about your own attitudes, issues with working on a team, and how to best manage your learning, all in an iterative, incremental, agile style. You'll see how to apply each practice, and what benefits you can expect. Bottom line: This book will make you a better developer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780974514086
Publisher:	Pragmatic Bookshelf
Publication date:	04/28/2006
Series:	Pragmatic Programmers
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.65(d)

About the Author

Venkat Subramaniam, founder of Agile Developer, Inc., has trained and mentored thousands of software developers in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia. Venkat helps his clients effectively apply and succeed with agile practices on their software projects. He is a frequently invited speaker at international software conferences and user groups.



He's author of ".NET Gotchas" (O'Reilly), coauthor of the 2007 Jolt Productivity award-winning book "Practices of an Agile Developer" (Pragmatic Bookshelf), and author of "Programming Groovy" (Pragmatic Bookshelf).

Andy Hunt is a programmer turned consultant, author and publisher. He co-authored the best-selling book "The Pragmatic Programmer", was one of the 17 founders of the Agile Alliance, and co-founded the Pragmatic Bookshelf, publishing award-winning and critically acclaimed books for software developers.

Table of Contents

1	Agile Software Development	1
2	Beginning Agility	11
1	Work for Outcome	13
2	Quick Fixes Become Quicksand	16
3	Criticize Ideas, Not People	19
4	Damn the Torpedoes, Go Ahead	24
3	Feeding Agility	27
5	Keep Up with Change	29
6	Invest in Your Team	32
7	Know When to Unlearn	35
8	Question Until You Understand	38
9	Feel the Rhythm	41
4	Delivering What Users Want	45
10	Let Customers Make Decisions	47
11	Let Design Guide, Not Dictate	50
12	Justify Technology Use	54
13	Keep It Releasable	57
14	Integrate Early, Integrate Often	60
15	Automate Deployment Early	63
16	Get Frequent Feedback Using Demos	66
17	Use Short Iterations, Release in Increments	71
18	Fixed Prices Are Broken Promises	75
5	Agile Feedback	79
19	Put Angels on Your Shoulders	81
20	Use It Before You Build It	85
21	Different Makes a Difference	90
22	Automate Acceptance Testing	93
23	Measure Real Progress	96
24	Listen to Users	99
6	Agile Coding	101
25	Program Intently and Expressively	103
26	Communicate in Code	108
27	Actively Evaluate Trade-Offs	113
28	Code in Increments	116
29	Keep It Simple	118
30	Write Cohesive Code	120
31	Tell, Don't Ask	124
32	Substitute by Contract	127
7	Agile Debugging	131
33	Keep a Solutions Log	132
34	Warnings Are Really Errors	135
35	Attack Problems in Isolation	139
36	Report All Exceptions	142
37	Provide Useful Error Messages	144
8	Agile Collaboration	149
38	Schedule Regular Face Time	151
39	Architects Must Write Code	155
40	Practice Collective Ownership	158
41	Be a Mentor	160
42	Allow People to Figure It Out	163
43	Share Code Only When Ready	165
44	Review Code	168
45	Keep Others Informed	171
9	Epilogue: Moving to Agility	173
9.1	Just One New Practice	173
9.2	Rescuing a Failing Project	174
9.3	Introducing Agility: The Manager's Guide	175
9.4	Introducing Agility: The Programmer's Guide	177
9.5	The End?	178
A	Resources	179
A.1	On the Web	179
A.2	Bibliography	182

Editorial Reviews

"I was familiar with some of the practices mentioned since I own other books from The Pragmatic Bookshelf, but this book brings a lot of those ideas together and presents them in an clear, concise, organized, format. I would highly recommend this book to a new developer or to a development team that wanted to get 'agile,'."

—Scott Splavec, Senior Software Engineer

"This book helps you understand what you are missing, or what you can do better. Practices of an Agile Developer makes it easy to become agile, or get even better at it."

—Steffen Gemkow, Managing Director, ObjectFab GmbH

From the Publisher