Essential Skills for the Agile Developer: A Guide to Better Programming and Design - Softcover

Shalloway, Alan; Bain, Scott; Pugh, Ken; Kolsky, Amir

3.61

57 ratings by Goodreads

9780321543738: Essential Skills for the Agile Developer: A Guide to Better Programming and Design

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0321543734 ISBN 13: 9780321543738

Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 2011

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Agile has become today’s dominant software development paradigm, but agile methods remain difficult to measure and improve. Essential Skills for the Agile Developer fills this gap from the bottom up, teaching proven techniques for assessing and optimizing both individual and team agile practices.

Written by four principals of Net Objectives—one of the world’s leading agile training and consulting firms—this book reflects their unsurpassed experience helping organizations transition to agile. It focuses on the specific actions and insights that can deliver the greatest design and programming improvements with economical investment.

The authors reveal key factors associated with successful agile projects and offer practical ways to measure them. Through actual examples, they address principles, attitudes, habits, technical practices, and design considerations—and above all, show how to bring all these together to deliver higher-value software. Using the authors’ techniques, managers and teams can optimize the whole organization and the whole product across its entire lifecycle.

Essential Skills for the Agile Developer shows how to

Perform programming by intention
Separate use from construction
Consider testability before writing code
Avoid over- and under-design
Succeed with Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)
Minimize complexity and rework
Use encapsulation more effectively and systematically
Know when and how to use inheritance
Prepare for change more successfully
Perform continuous integration more successfully
Master powerful best practices for design and refactoring

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About the Author:

Alan Shalloway, founder and CEO of Net Objectives, is a renowned thought leader, trainer, and coach in Lean, Kanban, product portfolio management, Scrum, and agile design. His books include Lean-Agile Software Development (Addison-Wesley, 2009), Lean-Agile Pocket Guide For Scrum Teams (Lean-Agile Press, 2009), and both editions of Design Patterns Explained (Addison-Wesley, 2001 and 2004).

Scott Bain, senior consultant at Net Objectives, is a 35+-year veteran in software development, engineering, and design. He authored the Jolt award-winning book Emergent Design (Addison-Wesley, 2008).

Ken Pugh, a fellow consultant at Net Objectives, helps companies move to Lean-Agility through training and coaching. His books include Lean-Agile Acceptance Test Driven Development (Addison-Wesley, 2011) and the Jolt Award-winner Prefactoring (O’Reilly, 2005).

Amir Kolsky is a senior consultant, coach, and trainer for Net Objectives with more than 25 years of experience.

Review:

“I tell teams that the lean and agile practices should be treated like a buffet: Don’t try and take everything, or it will make you ill–try the things that make sense for your project. In this book the authors have succinctly described the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of some of the most effective practices, enabling all software engineers to write quality code for short iterations in an efficient manner.”

– Kay Johnson

Software Development Effectiveness Consultant, IBM

“Successful agile development requires much more than simply mastering a computer language. It requires a deeper understanding of agile development methodologies and best practices. Essential Skills for the Agile Developer provides the perfect foundation for not only learning but truly understanding the methods and motivations behind agile development.”

– R.L. Bogetti

www.RLBogetti.com

Lead System Designer, Baxter Healthcare

“Essential Skills for the Agile Developer is an excellent resource filled with practical coding examples that demonstrate key agile practices.”

– Dave Hendricksen

Software Architect, Thomson Reuters

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