Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World (Pragmatic Bookshelf) (Pragmatic Programmers)

This book is great even if you think you already know Agile. Not only will it reinforce the good stuff and call you on the bad stuff, it will massively help you with the right explanation for people who don't know Agile yet!

Helpful for anyone eager to get agile. Well organized and written, right to the point.Recommended to software developers, architects and people managing dev teams.

The written style reminded me more of the Recipes type of book. Some of the other Agile-focussed books go into more detail about the whole process step by step. This one kind of looks at different aspects and perspectives in bite-sized chunks.It's probably good for introducing some agile aspects to a company, but it's not got the same level of detail or coherence that a book like The Art of Agile Development does.Also, some of the steps in agile, principles, etc, are more clearly represented with a diagram, which this book is very short on.In all, while useful and trying to cover a lot of ground in a rather short book, it's more like an extended collection of Agile development blog posts than anything else.I also didn't like the 'Devil's Advocate' entries, because with the way they're highlighted, where most books have the key hints and notes made more visible, this book manages to similarly highlight the EXACT OPPOSITE of the processes to follow. A quick flick through will then leave the strongest impression as those ideas not the right ones.

I had read a few reviews on this book, all positive so I was really looking forward to reading it.While the book encourages some very worthwhile and useful techniques I did find that many of the tips were practices that any reasonable software developer should be considering as a matter of course, not just to be agile.I would say that this is an excellent read for developers with only a few years of experience with some great tips on how to be more productive.However for more experienced people it should just be memory jogger and give you a chance to become enthused and really try to do the 'right' things again. Get through the 'software is alot like surfing' analogies and some of the more ivory tower comments (try telling you boss that a late fix cannot go in because as a developer you do not have authority to degrade company assets i.e. the source code) and focus on the real points of the text, often seemingly obvious but its surprising how few developers and projects follow the any sort of methodology at all.

Ein gutes Buch, mit kurzen Texten (ein paar Seiten) zu unterschiedlichsten agilen Methoden und Herangehensweisen. Sie eigenen sich gut dazu jeden Tag einen zu lesen um regelmäßig neue Anregungen bzw. Auffrischungen zum agilen Entwickeln zu bekommen.

I was introduced to agile development through several other Pragmatic Programmer books, and I've learned a great deal about agile methodologies and practices from each one.This book, however, tops them all in terms of: - Writing style, - Organization and tips, - Ideas that are presented, and - Overall usefulness.I love the writing style that Andy Hunt and Venkat Subramaniam use throughout the book. They are very fluid writers, and have no problem expressing complex thoughts simply.So, onto things in the book!Each chapter contains several small sub-sections, each of which is a few pages in length. They all start with a quote from a devil (your lazy programmer side), and then explain a certain agile methodology, and finish with an angel quote (your *good* programming side).I found that each sub-section is structured in the best possible way to really explain why a method is better than another, how it should feel when you do it the right way, and what it is all about.Each chapter also explains how to transition yourself (and your team) to use the new agile methods successfully, which was a HUGE bonus. So many books talk about why agile is good, and how it rocks, but can't explain how to get people to start using it.In my own experience, it is easy to want to improve my own work, but I have a hard time motivating my peers to do the same.If you're looking for an amazing book that will help you (and your team) write smarter, faster, simpler, and more flexible code, than you need to read this book.

Das Buch biete einen guten Überblick über die agile Entwicklung, und deren Vorteile. Es gibt fast ausschließlich theoretischen Inhalt, Szenarien, Ursachen und deren Lösungsansätze. Von dort aus muss man sich über weitere Fachbücher oder Onlineinhalte in die für sich interessanten Bereiche einarbeiten. Wie gesagt, als Überblick und als Wegweiser ist dieses Buch sehr gut, und ich kann es in der Hinsicht weiterempfehlen.

Some good ideas, well thought out and presented.

I churned through this book in about two weeks and will probably read through it again here soon. There are a lot of practical things which relate directly to my daily job and to working with teams. I would recommend the book to any developer seeking to improve their trade. Now to start implementing these ideas one at a time and tweaking them to fit my work environment!