Exploring Extreme Programming
Some unit tests are focused, other are like a run-on sentence. How can we create tests that are focused and communicate well? Arrange-act-assert is a pattern for good tests. What’s a good structure for a unit test? 3A: Arrange, Act, Continue reading 3A – Arrange, Act, Assert
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, by Geoff Colvin. Portfolio, 2008. Where does talent come from? Nature or nurture? A study of music students found no difference in starting point, but that practice made the Continue reading Review – Talent is Overrated (Colvin)
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug. New Riders Press, 2005. This thin book provides guidance on the basics of web usability. It focuses on the importance of doing things in a way Continue reading Review – Don’t Make Me Think (Krug)
Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love, by Roman Pichler. Addison-Wesley, 2010. This is a fairly easy read (about 120 pages) explaining the role of the Product Owner in Scrum. I’d describe the target as “someone preparing Continue reading Review – Agile Product Management with Scrum (Pichler)
Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis A linguist (Ransom) is kidnapped and ends up on another planet. (The science is wobbly, but it’s a classic travel story stretched to unexplored worlds). How will he work with humans or with those Continue reading Review – C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy
The Clockwork Man, by William Jablonsky. Medallion Press, 2010. Late in the 19th century, the world’s best clockmaker creates a clockwork man (who doesn’t like being referred to as a robot). He (it?) lets himself run down, and wakes up Continue reading Review: The Clockwork Man (Jablonsky)
Pragmatic Guide to Git, by Travis Swicegood. Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2010. I’m using git for the first time on a small project with a friend, and wanted a quick focused handbook to help with that. This book fills that bill. Continue reading Review – Pragmatic Guide to Git (Swicegood)
Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. Norton, 2005. The book could have been titled Food, Animals, and Latitude. Places with plants that could be more easily cultivated built a surplus that could support people doing things other than finding Continue reading Review: Guns, Germs, and Steel (Diamond)
Bibliography from the session on Systems Thinking led by Jean Tabaka and Bill Wake (William.Wake@acm.org), at Agile 2009, August, 2009. We’ve found these books useful and interesting and hope you do too. Banyai, Istvan. Zoom. Puffin, 1998. ISBN 0140557741. Brynteson, Continue reading Systems Thinking Bibliography
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin. Simon & Schuster, 2006. The 150th anniversary of the Civil War is coming up, so no doubt there will be plenty of books in this area. Lincoln Continue reading Review – Team of Rivals, by Doris Kearns Goodwin