Exploring Extreme Programming
How Music Works, by David Byrne. Three Rivers Press, 2017. David Byrne is a founder of the band Talking Heads. He explores music and the music industry. This is not specifically autobiographical, but he often draws on his experiences as Continue reading Review: How Music Works
It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis, 1935. ISBN 0451465644. This story tells how fascism could come to America. Lewis wrote it in 1935 – before Hitler attacked Poland in 1939. It shows that it was not too early to predict Continue reading Review: It Can’t Happen Here
The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure, by William Goldman. I saw this on a couple lists of favorite books a few weeks ago and had to re-read it. The title has it right Continue reading Review: The Princess Bride
Teams often don’t pay enough attention to language. A team can improve its language by using what Eric Evans calls Ubiquitous Language: “A language structured around the domain model and used by all team members to connect all the activities Continue reading Ubiquitous Language – A Triple-Play for Words
Give People Money, by Annie Lowrey. ISBN 1524758760. 2018. Universal Basic Income (“UBI”) is a system that gives everybody “free” money, say $1000/month. The idea is being considered by people with various goals: providing people with a way out of Continue reading Review: Give People Money
Martin Fowler writes, “Refactoring is the process of changing a software system in such a way that it does not alter the external behavior of the code yet it improves its internal structure.” [Refactoring, 1999, p. xvi] But what does Continue reading Limits of Refactoring: What IS Behavior?
Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times, by Ralph Stanley and Eddie Dean. Avery, 2009. Ralph Stanley was part of the Stanley Brothers until his brother Carter died in the 1960s; then he performed without him for many years. Continue reading Review: Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times (Ralph Stanley)
Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?: The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music, by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg. Simon & Schuster, 2014. The Carter Family was one of the biggest stars of early country music, after Continue reading Review: Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?: The Carter Family
How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, Crown, 2018. If you’re like me, you assumed that democracy to dictatorship would be some sort of guns-in-the-streets scenarios. Levitsky and Ziblatt argue that it’s not necessarily that way, that often Continue reading Review: How Democracies Die
The vocabulary of your user stories frames the domain of discourse: what are your stories about? It’s helpful to think of “the headline” and “the rest”. “The headline” is what you’d write on an index card or as a title Continue reading User Story Vocabulary: Problem, Solution, or Widget?