Exploring Extreme Programming
Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade, by James Reston. Faber and Faber, 2002. Saladin became the sultan of a mostly-united Muslim world (where Shia and Sunni were conflicting even then). The European side was Continue reading Review – Warriors of God
The Product Manager’s Handbook, by Linda Gorchels. McGraw-Hill, 2005. This is a basic book on product management (an area which has a shortage of material). It talks about the role of product managers, planning, maintaining a portfolio, new products, pricing, Continue reading Review – The Product Manager’s Handbook, by Linda Gorchels
How does the order of tests affect the design of software? A game to explore that idea. Continue reading Tests from a Hat
Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests, by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce, ISBN 0-321-50362-7 Freeman and Pryce explain Test-Driven Development through an extended example. (They have a somewhat different perspective than I do, with much heavier use of mock objects. Continue reading Review – Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests
The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. Metropolitan, 2009. This book is an expansion of Gawande’s interesting New Yorker article. It’s an exploration of how the relatively simple idea of a checklist can be used to ensure that complicated things get Continue reading Review – The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande
When I'm teaching about retrospectives, there has always been a challenge: a simulated retrospective wants a shared experience. But what shared experience to use? The one experience I know we share is the session we're in, but using a retrospective Continue reading Movie Retrospective
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, by Jared Diamond. Penguin, 2005.What makes a society fail? Diamond looks at a variety of societies, current and past, to explore this, with a framework of several factors, but especially focusing Continue reading Review – Collapse, by Jared Diamond
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow. Tor, 2003. What happens when reputation is more important than money, when death is yesterday’s problem? A group of people have decided to maintain Disney World. Is it better to change or Continue reading Review – Down & Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow
Mabinogion Tetralogy, by Evangeline Walton. Overlook. 2003. This is an under-appreciated work of fantasy. It’s based on the Mabinogion, a set of Celtic myths found in Welsh documents. The version I bought 25 years ago was in four separate volumes, Continue reading Review – Mabinogion Tetralogy, by Evangeline Walton
Mythology, by Edith Hamilton. Back Bay Books, 1998. Hamilton works through the basic myths, mostly from Greek and Roman sources. Topics include “The Gods, the Creation, and the Earliest Heroes”, “Stories of Love and Adventure”, “The Great Heroes before Continue reading Review – Mythology, by Edith Hamilton