Jerome's Blog

I came across an amazing introduction to TDD today by Sandro Mancuso, Testing and Refactoring Legacy Code . Running time is 1 hour and 17 minutes, and is worth every second. This is truly a master at work. In just over an hour, Sandro nicely sums up TDD (See Test Driven Development By Example by Kent Beck), and explains the core concepts from Michael Feathers book Working Effectively with Legacy Code . Every refactoring is done slow and methodical, and well explained. Sandro has a book coming out in December, The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride . Another book to add to my reading list.

Below are the books I've read (so far) in 2014. Mainly business books, some technical (some for desk reference), and a couple on Zen, and a couple of novels. The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride , Sandro Mancuso (pre-ordered) Tao Te Ching , Lao Tzu (in progress) The Way of Zen , Alan Watts (in progress) Enchiridion , Epictetus (in progress) Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# , Robert C. Martin, Micah Martin Thinking, Fast and Slow , Daniel Kahneman (in progress) History of Western Philosophy , Bertrand Russell (in progress) Thoughts of a Philosophical Fighter Pilot , James B. Stockdale In Love and War , Jim and Sybil Stockdale The Joy of Clojure , Second Edition, Michael Fogus, Chris Houser (in progress) Rework , Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hanson High Output Management, Andrew Grove How Google Works , Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg The Hard Thing About Hard Things , Ben Horowitz Zero to One , Peter Thiel, B...

There is no one product used alone that will enable you to lose weight. Just like there is no one development practice that will help you attain high quality software. You might see on TV an add for some piece of equipment, say something called the Ab Master 3000 (completely just made that up, may or may not exist). The company selling said product might promote it by showing an extremely fit person, with a tag line "you can get these amazing results by using the Ab Master 3000 for 30 minutes a day". They aren't lying to you, you could get the amazing results such as six pack abs. But unless you have a proper diet and exercise regiment, and the will power and persistence to keep at it long enough to get your percentage body fat low enough to be able to see these results. For those who buy this product and only use that product and nothing more, they won't see the results the are picturing. The same thing applies to software development practices such as TDD. A T...