Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software (Pragmatic Programmers)


Michael T. Nygard - 2007
    Did you design your system to survivef a sudden rush of visitors from Digg or Slashdot? Or an influx of real world customers from 100 different countries? Are you ready for a world filled with flakey networks, tangled databases, and impatient users?If you're a developer and don't want to be on call for 3AM for the rest of your life, this book will help.In Release It!, Michael T. Nygard shows you how to design and architect your application for the harsh realities it will face. You'll learn how to design your application for maximum uptime, performance, and return on investment.Mike explains that many problems with systems today start with the design.

Agile!: The Good, the Hype and the Ugly


Bertrand Meyer - 2014
    The book details agile principles, roles, managerial practices, technical practices and artifacts, offering a complete review that will help readers master all the important agile ideas.

Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life


Jim Benson - 2011
    People need to be effective.Productivity books focus on doing more, Jim and Tonianne want you to focus on doing better. Personal Kanban is about choosing the right work at the right time. Recognizing why we do the things we do. Understanding the impact of our actions. Creating value - not just product. For ourselves, our families, our friends, our co-workers. For our legacy.Personal Kanban takes the same Lean principles from manufacturing that led the Japanese auto industry to become a global leader in quality, and applies them to individual and team work. Personal Kanban asks only that we visualize our work and limit our work-in-progress. Visualizing work allows us to transform our conceptual and threatening workload into an actionable, context-sensitive flow. Limiting our work-in-progress helps us complete what we start and understand the value of our choices. Combined, these two simple acts encourage us to improve the way we work and the way we make choices to balance our personal, professional, and social lives.Neither a prescription nor a plan, Personal Kanban provides a light, actionable, achievable framework for understanding our work and its context. This book describes why students, parents, business leaders, major corporations, and world governments all see immediate results with Personal Kanban.

Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters


Ryan Singer - 2019
    "This book is a guide to how we do product development at Basecamp. It’s also a toolbox full of techniques that you can apply in your own way to your own process.Whether you’re a founder, CTO, product manager, designer, or developer, you’re probably here because of some common challenges that all software companies have to face."

Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love


Marty Cagan - 2008
    The goal of the book is to share the techniques of the best companies. This book is aimed primarily at Product Managers working on technology-powered products. That includes the hundreds of "tech companies" like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and the like, as well as the thousands of companies moving to leverage technology (financial companies, media companies, retailers, manufacturers, nearly every industry). Inspired covers companies from early stage start-ups to large, established companies. The products might be consumer products or devices, business services for small businesses to enterprises, internal tools, and developer platforms.Inspired is secondarily aimed at the designers, engineers, user researchers and data scientists that work closely with the product managers on product teams at these same companies.

Clean Agile: Back to Basics


Robert C. Martin - 2019
    Martin ("Uncle Bob") reintroduces agile values and principles for a new generation of software developers. In this eagerly-awaited book, the best-selling author of The Clean Coder shows how to bring unprecedented levels of professionalism and discipline to agile development -- and thereby write far more effective, successful software. As with his other books, Martin's Clean Agile: Back to Basics doesn't merely present multiple choices and options, and say "use your best judgment": it tells you what choices to make, and why those choices are critical to your success. Writing in the agile context, Martin offers direct, no-nonsense answers to crucial questions like:How and why did Agile begin? What are the costs and benefits of Agile? What are the most effective practices of Agile Development? How should an Agile team be organized? What roles do programmers, testers, and managers play in an Agile team? What is the role of the Agile Coach? What about Agile for large projects? What kinds of projects benefit from Agile? Clean Agile: Back to Basics is essential reading for programmers, managers, testers, project managers and every software professional called upon to lead or participate in an agile project.

It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work


Jason Fried - 2018
    Now, they build on their message with a bold, iconoclastic strategy for creating the ideal company culture—what they call "the calm company." Their approach directly attack the chaos, anxiety, and stress that plagues millions of workplaces and hampers billions of workers every day.Long hours, an excessive workload, and a lack of sleep have become a badge of honor for modern professionals. But it should be a mark of stupidity, the authors argue. Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for large organizations—individuals, contractors, and solopreneurs are burning themselves out the same way. The answer to better productivity isn’t more hours—it’s less waste and fewer things that induce distraction and persistent stress.It’s time to stop celebrating Crazy, and start celebrating Calm, Fried and Hansson assert.Fried and Hansson have the proof to back up their argument. "Calm" has been the cornerstone of their company’s culture since Basecamp began twenty years ago. Destined to become the management guide for the next generation, It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work is a practical and inspiring distillation of their insights and experiences. It isn’t a book telling you what to do. It’s a book showing you what they’ve done—and how any manager or executive no matter the industry or size of the company, can do it too.

Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules


Steve McConnell - 1996
    Emphasizes possible, realistic and "best practice" approaches for managers, technical leads and self-managed teams. The author emphasizes efficient development concepts with an examination of rapid development strategies and a study of classic mistakes, within the context of software-development fundamentals and risk management. Dissects the core issues of rapid development, lifecycle planning, estimation and scheduling. Contains very good and practical discussions of customer-oriented development, motivation and teamwork. Explains such fundamental requirements as team structure, feature-set control (the dreaded feature creep in every project), availability and use of productivity tools and project recovery options. Relevant case studies are analyzed and discussed within the context of specific software development problems. Over 200 pages in this publication are devoted to a summary of best practices, everything from the daily build and smoke test, through prototyping, model selection, measurement, reuse, and the top-10 risks list. This publication is definitely recommended and will become a classic in the field, just as the author's prior publication, "Code Complete" already is.

Soft Skills: The Software Developer's Life Manual


John Z. Sonmez - 2014
    In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez addresses a wide range of important "soft" topics, from career and productivity to personal finance and investing, and even fitness and relationships, all from a developer-centric viewpoint.For most software developers, coding is the fun part. The hard bits are dealing with clients, peers, and managers, staying productive, achieving financial security, keeping yourself in shape, and finding true love. This book is here to help.Soft Skills: The software developer's life manual is a guide to a well-rounded, satisfying life as a technology professional. In it, developer and life coach John Sonmez offers advice to developers on important "soft" subjects like career and productivity, personal finance and investing, and even fitness and relationships. Arranged as a collection of 71 short chapters, this fun-to-read book invites you to dip in wherever you like. A Taking Action section at the end of each chapter shows you how to get quick results. Soft Skills will help make you a better programmer, a more valuable employee, and a happier, healthier person.What's InsideBoost your career by building a personal brandJohn's secret ten-step process for learning quicklyFitness advice to turn your geekiness to your advantageUnique strategies for investment and early retirement

The Pomodoro Technique


Francesco Cirillo - 2006
    The Wall Street Journal says the method can “help anyone to focus.”The new version of the Pomodoro Technique includes a chapter on how to make the Technique work for you. Readers will also learn how to predict the time it takes to complete a task, monitor their productivity and set personal goals.Having fun with time management might seem like an oxymoron to some but it’s actually possible with the Pomodoro Technique!

Agile Estimating and Planning


Mike Cohn - 2005
    In this book, Agile Alliance cofounder Mike Cohn discusses the philosophy of agile estimating and planning and shows you exactly how to get the job done, with real-world examples and case studies.Concepts are clearly illustrated and readers are guided, step by step, toward how to answer the following questions: What will we build? How big will it be? When must it be done? How much can I really complete by then? You will first learn what makes a good plan-and then what makes it agile.Using the techniques in Agile Estimating and Planning , you can stay agile from start to finish, saving time, conserving resources, and accomplishing more. Highlights include:Why conventional prescriptive planning fails and why agile planning works How to estimate feature size using story points and ideal days--and when to use each How and when to re-estimate How to prioritize features using both financial and nonfinancial approaches How to split large features into smaller, more manageable ones How to plan iterations and predict your team's initial rate of progress How to schedule projects that have unusually high uncertainty or schedule-related risk How to estimate projects that will be worked on by multiple teams Agile Estimating and Planning supports any agile, semiagile, or iterative process, including Scrum, XP, Feature-Driven Development, Crystal, Adaptive Software Development, DSDM, Unified Process, and many more. It will be an indispensable resource for every development manager, team leader, and team member.

The Developer's Code: What Real Programmers Do


Ka Wai Cheung - 2012
    There are no trite superlatives here. Packed with lessons learned from more than a decade of software development experience, author Ka Wai Cheung takes you through the programming profession from nearly every angle to uncover ways of sustaining a healthy connection with your work. You'll see how to stay productive even on the longest projects. You'll create a workflow that works with you, not against you. And you'll learn how to deal with clients whose goals don't align with your own. If you don't handle them just right, issues such as these can crush even the most seasoned, motivated developer. But with the right approach, you can transcend these common problems and become the professional developer you want to be. In more than 50 nuggets of wisdom, you'll learn: Why many traditional approaches to process and development roles in this industry are wrong - and how to sniff them out. Why you must always say "no" to the software pet project and open-ended timelines. How to incorporate code generation into your development process, and why its benefits go far beyond just faster code output. What to do when your client or end user disagrees with an approach you believe in. How to pay your knowledge forward to future generations of programmers through teaching and evangelism. If you're in this industry for the long run, you'll be coming back to this book again and again.

Modern CTO: Everything you need to know, to be a Modern CTO.


Joel Beasley - 2018
    ―Jacob Boudreau CTO of Stord | Forbes 30 Under 30 Joel's book and show provide incredible insights for young startup developers and fellow CTOs alike. Joel offers a human perspective and real practical advice on the challenges and opportunities facing every Modern CTO. ― Christian Saucier | Entrepreneur and P2P Systems Architect I've really come to respect what Joel is doing in the community. His podcast and book are filling a much needed hole and I'm excited to see what else the future has in store. ― Don Pawlowski Chief Technology Officer at University Tees Modern CTO Everything you need to know to be a Modern CTO. Developers are not CTOs, but developers can learn how to be CTOs. In Modern CTO, Joel Beasley provides readers with an in-depth road map on how to successfully navigate the unexplored and jagged transition between these two roles. Drawing from personal experience, Joel gives a refreshing take on the challenges, lessons, and things to avoid on this journey.Readers will learn how Modern CTOs: Manage deadlines Speak up Know when to abandon ship and build a better one Deal with poor code Avoid getting lost in the product and know what UX mistakes to watch out for Manage people and create momentum … plus much more Modern CTO is the ultimate book when making the leap from developer to CTO. Update: Kindle Formatting issues resolved 5/13/18. Thank you for the feedback.

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life: 7 Powerful Tools for Life and Work


Marilee G. Adams - 2004
    She uses a highly instructive and entertaining story to show how to quickly recognize any undermining questions that pop into your mind--or out of your mouth--and reframe them to achieve amazingly positive and practical results. The third edition includes a new introduction and epilogue and two powerful new tools that show how Question Thinking can dramatically improve coaching and leadership. Based on Adams's decades of research and experience, this book can make a life-transforming difference--as it already has for many thousands of people around the world.

12 Essential Skills for Software Architects


Dave Hendricksen - 2011
    In today's agile environments, these "soft" skills have grown even more crucial to success as an architect. For many developers, however, these skills don't come naturally-and they're rarely addressed in formal training. Now, long-time software architect Dave Hendricksen helps you fill this gap, supercharge your organizational impact, and quickly move to the next level in your career. In 12 Essential Skills for Software Architects, Hendricksen begins by pinpointing the specific relationship, personal, and business skills that successful architects rely upon. Next, he presents proven methods for systematically developing and sharpening every one of these skills, from negotiation and leadership to pragmatism and vision. From start to finish, this book's practical insights can help you get the architect position you want-and thrive once you have it! The soft skills you need... ...and a coherent framework and practical methodology for mastering them! Relationship skills Leadership, politics, gracious behavior, communication, negotiation Personal skills Context switching, transparency, passion Business skills Pragmatism, vision, business knowledge, innovation