Software Craftsmanship

Table of Contents

• • Preface
    • About This Book
  • Acknowledgements
  • About the author
• I Part I - Ideology & Attitude
  • 1 Software Development
    • Seniority
    • A new reality
  • 2 Agile
    • • Process-oriented disciplines
      • Technical-oriented disciplines
    • What is it to Be Agile?
      • A game-changer
      • People empowerment
      • Professional evolution
    • Agile Manifesto
      • Principles behind the Agile Manifesto
    • The Agile Transformation Era
    • The Agile Hangover
      • A partial transformation
        • Agile Coaches
        • Rejecting technical practices
        • A naive approach to software projects
      • But it’s not all bad news
    • Agile vs. Software Craftsmanship
  • 3 Software Craftsmanship
    • • A better metaphor
        • What does Wikipedia say?
        • A more personal definition
        • The shortest definition
      • Beyond definitions
      • Craft, Trade, Engineering, Science or Art
    • A bit of history
      • The Software Craftsmanship Summit
      • Crossing borders
      • Craftsman Swap
      • Software Craftsmanship Communities
    • The Software Craftsmanship Manifesto
      • The Manifesto
      • Software Craftsmanship Values
      • The problem with the manifesto
  • 4 The Software Craftsmanship Attitude
    • Who owns our career?
      • Employer / Employee relationship
    • Keeping ourselves up to date
    • Know whom to follow
      • Social media
    • Practice, practice, practice
      • Katas
      • Pet project(s)
      • Open Source
      • Pair programming
    • Socialise
    • Deliberate Discovery
    • Work-Life Balance
      • Creating time
      • Focus: The Pomodoro Technique
      • Balance
  • 5 Heroes, Goodwill and Professionalism
    • Learning how to say NO
      • An epic failure
      • Lesson learned
      • Being professional
    • Providing options
      • An unexpected and viable option
    • Enlightened managers
  • 6 Working Software
    • • Working Software is not enough
      • Looking after our garden
    • The Invisible Threat
      • Hostage of your own software
      • Hire craftsmen, not average developers
    • The Wrong Notion of Time
      • A Technical Debt Story
        • We want to do the right thing
      • A busy team with no spare time
        • We don’t have time but apparently someone else does
      • The Unit Test task card
      • Using time wisely
        • A few months later
    • Legacy code
      • A change in attitude
      • Personal and client satisfaction
  • 7 Technical Practices
    • The Right Thing vs. The Thing Right
    • Context
    • Extreme Programming history
    • Practices and values
      • Adding value through practices
        • Automated testing
        • Test First
        • Test-Driven Development (TDD)
        • Continuous Integration
        • Pair programming
        • Refactoring
    • Accountability
    • Pragmatism
  • 8 The Long Road
    • Focus and determination
      • But what if we don’t know where we are going?
    • Job as investment
    • Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose
    • Career inside companies
• II Part II - A full transformation
  • 9 Recruitment
    • Too busy to interview
    • No job descriptions
      • What if a job description is needed?
      • A job is not just a job
    • Recommendations
    • Community involvement
    • Defining an effective filtering criteria
    • Summary
  • 10 Interviewing Software Craftsmen
    • A business negotiation
    • Identifying productive partnerships
      • A hiring company’s perspective
      • A candidate’s perspective
    • Good interviews
      • The right focus
      • Mind mapping a conversation
      • Pair-programming interview
        • Bring your own computer
      • Tailor-made interviews
    • Taking a punt
    • Hiring for an existing team or for a totally new team?
    • Pre-interview coding exercises
    • A whole team activity
    • Final considerations
  • 11 Interview Anti-patterns
    • Smart-ass interviewer
    • Brainteasers
    • Asking questions which you don’t know the answer
    • Trying to make the candidate look like a fool
    • No Internet
    • Coding on a piece of paper
    • Algorithms
    • Phone interviews
  • 12 The Cost of Low Morale
    • The Agile Hangover: Low Morale
    • The cost of employing 9-to-5 developers
    • Constrained by lack of motivation
    • Making an impact
  • 13 Culture of Learning
    • Creating a culture of learning
      • Book club
      • Tech lunch (Brown Bag Session)
      • Group discussions (Roundtables)
      • Switching projects for an iteration
        • Switching projects for a few hours
      • Group code reviews
      • Hands-on coding sessions
        • Technology specific vs. Technology agnostic
      • Internal communities of practice
      • Pet-project time
      • External technical communities
    • What if others don’t want to join in?
      • Be an example
      • Focus on those who care
      • Don’t force
      • Few people, big improvements
      • Avoid consensus delays
      • Don’t ask for authorisation
      • Don’t complicate
      • Establish a rhythm
  • 14 Driving Technical Changes
    • Identifying scepticism patterns
    • Be prepared
    • Where do we start?
      • Establish trust
        • Gain expertise
      • Lead by example
      • Choose your battles
      • Iterate, inspect, and adapt
    • Fear and Incompetence
    • How do I convince my manager?
    • How do I convince my team to do TDD?
    • Facing the sceptics
      • The Ivory-Tower Architect
        • Responsibility vs. Accountability
      • The Wronged
    • Should we really care about all that?
  • 15 Pragmatic Craftsmanship
    • Busting the “expensive and time-consuming quality” myth
      • Do we need to test-drive everything?
    • Refactoring
    • The “one way” of developing software
    • Helping the business
      • A simple and quick solution
    • Software projects are not about us
    • Great vs. mediocre
    • Four Rules of Simple Design
      • Design patterns
      • Refactoring to patterns
    • Craftsmanship and pragmatism
  • 16 A Career as a Software Craftsman
    • Being a craftsman
      • Honesty and courage
    • Career progression
      • Different ladders
    • Roads and milestones
      • Building our careers, one job at a time
      • What if we don’t know where we want to go?
    • Job diversity
    • The mission