The Nature Of Software Development

This is a quick read by Ron Jeffries, one of the signers of the Agile Manifesto. the book really justs lays out how to do Agile Development, but not in a preachy way or a proscriptive way. It’s more of a high-level picture of what the whole process looks like.

A few highlights:

• I really liked the chapter on planning, where he talks about how valuable planning is, but how useless plans are.
• I also liked chapter 10 on value. He describes how value is really subjective and depends on what our goals are.
• The chapter on refactoring is also quite good. I particularly liked the campground rule: Leave the place a little better than the way you found it.

This book along with the Agile Samurai are really my guideposts for software development. They are what I strive to do. I wish I could say I was already doing it all, but it is a process of continual improvement.