The Ultimate Unit Test Failure:

But when it comes time to marshal the solution to the problems, we find ourselves slamming into this kind of Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man of software development.

[Via: Coding Horror]

Are you the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man of your dev team? Make sure to check out the recommended title too: Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think.

You can find out more about Steve Krug on his website – sensible.com [natch].

Here’s a quote from the book:

It’s always interesting to watch Web designers and developers observe their first usability test. The first time they see a user click on something completely inappropriate, they’re surprised. (For instance, when the user ignores a nice big fat “Software” button in the navigation bar, saying something like, “Well, I’m looking for software, so I guess I’d click here on ‘Cheap Stuff’ because cheap is always good.”) The user may even find what he’s looking for eventually, but by then the people watching don’t know whether to be happy or not.

The second time it happens, they’re yelling “Just click on ‘Software’!” The third time, you can see them thinking: “Why are we even bothering?”

While I haven’t worked for a startup tech company, I’ve been a customer of quite a few. From that angle, I can tell you that Tatum’s book is perfect for every growing tech company. No, really. If you are running a tech company, buy this book now and read it before you reach your plateau. See what lies ahead of you and stop it before you have a real mess on your hands.

But like I said above, Tatum’s advice is not just good for companies, it’s good for fast growing departments within larger organizations too. If you run a high growth area, there’s no doubt that you will recognize the signs that Tatum talks about in his book. His practical advice can really help drag you out of the doom and gloom scenarios that inevitably come to fast growing departments when they reach maximum capacity and need to change.

[Oh, and in case you'd like to stay small, Tatum will point you to Bo Burlingham's Small Giants. I read Burlingham's book too and I think it is spot on advice for those companies who have pegged themselves to be a certain size. If you run a smallish company and want to keep it that way, buy copies of Small Giants and give them to your executives. This will ease a lot of frustration. You might lose some growth-oriented folks, but in exchange you'll have focused leadership that understands the long term vision.]

Pragmatic Programmer presentation posted:

I’ve posted the slides from a presentation I gave at work to our software development team on the Pragmatic Programmer book. This collection of common-sense practices has become kind of a manual for good programmers everywhere.

[Via: Guy Davis]

About the book

From the publisher:

Straight from the programming trenches, The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master cuts through the increasing specialization and technicalities of modern software development to examine the core process—taking a requirement and producing working, maintainable code that delights its users. It covers topics ranging from personal responsibility and career development to architectural techniques for keeping your code flexible, easy to adapt, and reuse.