Understanding Software

Packt Publishing is giving away Understanding Software for free. Software legend Max Kanat-Alexander shows you how to succeed as a developer by embracing simplicity, with forty-three essays that will help you really understand the software you work with. (Limited-time offer)<

Table of Contents

• The Engineer Attitude
• The Singular Secret of the Rockstar Programmer
• Software Design, in Two Sentences
• Clues to Complexity
• Ways To Create Complexity: Break Your API
• When Is Backwards-Compatibility Not Worth It?
• Complexity is a Prison
• Design from the Start
• The Accuracy of Future Predictions
• Simplicity and Strictness
• Two is Too Many
• Sane Software Design
• What is a Bug?
• The Source of Bugs
• Make It Never Come Back
• The Fundamental Philosophy of Debugging
• Effective Engineering Productivity
• Measuring Developer Productivity
• How to Handle Code Complexity in a Software Company
• Refactoring is about Features
• Kindness and Code
• Open Source Community, Simplified
• What is a Computer?
• The Components of Software: Structure, Action, and Results
• Software Revisited: (I)SAR Clarified
• Software as Knowledge
• The Purpose of Technology
• Privacy, Simplified
• Simplicity and Security
• Test-Driven Development and the Cycle of Observation
• The Philosophy of Testing
• The Secret of Success: Suck Less
• How We Figured Out What Sucked
• The Power of No
• Why Programmers Suck
• The Secret of Fast Programming: Stop Thinking
• Developer Hubris
• “Consistency” Does Not Mean “Uniformity”
• Users Have Problems, Developers Have Solutions
• Instant Gratification = Instant Failure
• Success Comes from Execution, Not Innovation
• Excellent Software

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