Code Leader: Using People, Tools, and Processes to Build Successful Software - Softcover

Cauldwell, Patrick

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0470259248 ISBN 13: 9780470259245

Publisher: Wrox Pr Inc, 2008

Synopsis

This book is for the career developer who wants to take his or her skill set and/or project to the next level. If you are a professional software developer with 3–4 years of experience looking to bring a higher level of discipline to your project, or to learn the skills that will help you transition from software engineer to technical lead, then this book is for you. The topics covered in this book will help you focus on delivering software at a higher quality and lower cost. The book is about practical techniques and practices that will help you and your team realize those goals.

This book is for the developer understands that the business of software is, first and foremost, business. Writing code is fun, but writing high-quality code on time and at the lowest possible cost is what makes a software project successful. A team lead or architect who wants to succeed must keep that in mind.

Given that target audience, this book assumes a certain level of skill at reading code in one or more languages, and basic familiarity with building and testing software projects. It also assumes that you have at least a basic understanding of the software development lifecycle, and how requirements from customers become testable software projects.

Who This Book Is Not For: This is not a book for the entry-level developer fresh out of college, or for those just getting started as professional coders. It isn’t a book about writing code; it’s a book about how we write code together while keeping quality up and costs down. It is not for those who want to learn to write more efficient or literate code. There are plenty of other books available on those subjects, as mentioned previously.

This is also not a book about project management or development methodology. All of the strategies and techniques presented here are just as applicable to waterfall projects as they are to those employing Agile methodologies. While certain strategies such as Test-Driven Development and Continuous Integration have risen to popularity hand in hand with Agile development methodologies, there is no coupling between them. There are plenty of projects run using SCRUM that do not use TDD, and there are just as many waterfall projects that do.

Philosophy versus Practicality: There are a lot of religious arguments in software development. Exceptions versus result codes, strongly typed versus dynamic languages, and where to put your curly braces are just a few examples. This book tried to steer clear of those arguments here. Most of the chapters in this book deal with practical steps that you as a developer can take to improve your skills and improve the state of your project. The author makes no claims that these practices represent the way to write software. They represent strategies that have worked well for the author and other developers that he have worked closely with.

Philosophy certainly has its place in software development. Much of the current thinking in project management has been influenced by the Agile philosophy, for example. The next wave may be influenced by the Lean methodologies developed by Toyota for building automobiles. Because it represents a philosophy, the Lean process model can be applied to building software just as easily as to building cars. On the other hand, because they exist at the philosophical level, such methodologies can be difficult to conceptualize. The book tries to favor the practical over the philosophical, the concrete over the theoretical. This should be the kind of book that you can pick up, read one chapter of, and go away with some practical changes you can make to your software project that will make it better.

That said, the first part of this book is entitled “Philosophy” because the strategies described in it represent ways of approaching a problem rather than a specific solution. There are just as many practical ways to do Test-Driven Development as there are ways to manage a sof

About this title

About the Author

Patrick Cauldwell somehow found his way to a career in software despite earning a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies. From a work-study job in the student computer lab at college through early jobs in quality assurance and localization, and finally into full-time software engineering, Patrick has always been interested in what makes computers tick. He’s worked in a wide range of software operations, from very large projects at Intel to a very small start-up to a consulting job in the midst of the .COM boom.

From the Back Cover

Code Leader: Using People, Tools, and Processes to Build Successful Software

"Patrick is a pragmatist with a purist's knowledge. He has a deep understanding of what 'smells' right, and he knows when and how to find the right balance to get the job done. This philosophy of balanced 'pure pragmatism' pervades this book and makes it useful."
from the foreword by Scott Hanselman, Author of ComputerZen Blog, www.computerzen.com; Senior Program Manager, Developer Division, Microsoft Corporation

Writing code is rewarding, but writing high-quality code, on time and at the lowest possible cost, is what makes a software project successful. As the role of a professional developer has evolved and taken on additional responsibilities, it is now necessary to work in concert with a team in order to improve both the process and final results of a software project. This unique book introduces a set of concrete best practices and construction techniques that can be applied to the development process and to actual code construction, so that you can confidently solve business problems rather than deal solely with pure coding tasks.

Patrick Cauldwell understands that it is no longer sufficient to just write software that solves a problem; it must also be fast, scalable, reliable, and easy to use. In this reference, he explains how to build software that is of high quality at a lower cost and shares with you the practical steps you must take in order to transition from software engineer to technical lead.

What you will learn from this book

• Practical steps you can take to combine different developmental philosophies, processes, and construction techniques into a unified approach to software

• Methods for deciding which parts of a project you need to write yourself versus what you can buy or reuse

• Tools and processes you can employ to improve source code quality and maintainability

• How to create, run, organize, and measure tests, and then make them more useful to developers and testers

• Ways that programming by contract can make your code easier for developers to understand and use

• Recommended techniques for handling errors in your code that will make your application easier to debug and support

Who this book is for
This book is for experienced software developers who are looking to improve their development skill set and bring a higher level of discipline to a project.

Wrox guides are crafted to make learning programming languages and technologies easier than you think. Written by programmers for programmers, they provide a structured, tutorial format that will guide you through all the techniques involved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wrox Pr Inc
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0470259248
• ISBN 13: 9780470259245
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 233