Trevor G. Leybourne said
I looked through this book online using Amazon and some of the pages looked of interest to me as I am working with some new teams who have not used Agile before and there were parts of this books (mainly around user stories) which got my attention.
I have been developing for 25 years and have been managing Agile teams over the last 4 years, recently using Scrum as the framework of choice. I was looking for some further material to expand my knowledge base and having read Head First Design Patterns (highly recommended) I thought this book would fit my needs.
For me, I was dissapointed. I read this book basically cover-to-cover in about 3 hours and there were aspects which made me think, on the whole there was nothing new in this book and the topics it did cover it did not go into any real depth. For me, not a good use of my money.
However, as a book to get my team and future teams who are new to Agile, Test First, Continuous Integration, Version Control, Unit Testing, User Stories, etc, this book is great and I do recommend it.
The Head First series of books take the reader on a simple journey. Nothing complex or where there is something complex they de-complex it and in some ways dumb it down to a reasonably low common-denominator. This means just about anyone can read this book and should understand the concepts and principles in it. I plan to provide this to some non-technical BA's who I work with and other than the section on Unit Testing know that they will be able to read this, digest it, and understand the principles and then hopefully use them within our organisation.
Darya Said-Akbari said
This book teach you best practices in today's software development industry. It should be a must read for any software development team member as well as project manager before the project kick off.
Erik Larson said
The first half is quite useful for general software development (even general project management), and is well-written and interesting. The second half is much more specific to GUI and Java development, but is far more technical and specific to the type of problems they are working with.
I was looking at this book as a way of introducing better software development to a group of engineers who can program (i.e. not software engineers). Of course, the design, which I thought effective, was going to make it a hard sell. But everything through the chapter on source code control seemed like great stuff that would be understandable and beneficial. But then it fell off a cliff: more particular to Agile and to GUI development. Without a good familiarity with Java and UML diagrams, this part is impossible.
I'm still looking for the right book on software development for people who have written lots of great code, but never developed any software.
Thomas Duff said
When I first looked at Head First Software Development by Dan Pilone and Russ Miles, I was thinking that it would be best targeted at people who had never formally written software before. It definitely fits that bill. But I can see a use for experienced developers who have never been exposed to agile development techniques. Either way, it's a very good book.
Contents:
Intro
Great Software Development: Pleasing Your Customer
Gathering Requirements: Knowing What The Customer Wants
Project Planning: Planning For Success
User Stories and Tasks: Getting To The Real Work
Good-Enough Design: Getting It Done With Great Design
Version Control: Defensive Development
Building Your Code: Insert Tab A Into Slot B...
Testing and Continuous Integration: Things Fall Apart
Test-Driven Development: Holding Your Code Accountable
Ending An Iteration: It's All Coming Together...
The Next Iteration: If It Ain't Broke... You Still Better Fix It
Bugs: Squashing Bugs Like A Pro
The Real World: Having A Process In Life
Appendix 1 - Leftovers: The Top 5 Things (We Didn't Cover)
Appendix 2 - Techniques and Principles: Tools For The Experienced Software Developer
The authors do a great job of covering the entire software development process, from getting requirements to debugging code. But instead of going back to the older and more traditional waterfall method of software development, they chose to expose the reader to the agile methodology. Personally, I think that's a great decision, as it gets across important techniques such as story cards, iterations, and test-driven development. Learning those skills as the primary way to build software goes a long way towards prepping the new developer for the marketplace.
But as I contemplated this approach, I realized that the content would work for more than just new software developers. There are still a large number of long-time developers who have been raised in the waterfall method. When you start talking about agile techniques, there's a hesitancy to try something so radically different than what they've always done. HF Software Development can serve as that "first exposure" to the agile methods for them. It's no secret that I love the Head First method of teaching, so I'm convinced that the style of writing would also be perfect for absorbing the new information.
It's not often that I find a book that can effectively address two audiences at entirely different ends of the spectrum. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised that it's a Head First book that pulls it off. If you're a new software developer, this will get you started off on the right foot. And if you're an experienced (read: long-time) developer, don't be so quick to dismiss this...
Joshua Blair said
This is my second Head First title. I have enjoyed this one just as much as Head First SQL: Your Brain on SQL -- A Learner's Guide (Head First).
Some people may be put off by the style: images, stories, repetition, etc. I would encourage those people to give it a shot. The content is very well put together, thorough, and interesting.
I will encourage the rest of my team to pick up this book. We will all benefit from the concepts delivered and explained by the Head First team.
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