201 Principles of Software Development

It does, as far as your life as a software engineer or manager thereof goes. This book spells out everything, from getting started on a project to maintaining it after release.Each principle is given as a heading, each on a separate page, and every one of them is true. A short explanation follows each one. Other principles that relate are pointed out. But the true value is the footer on each page. It is a pointer to the literature where you can find the principle in question discussed definitively.Ultimately, this book functions as a directory/index to every aspect of software engineering. If you need to know a phone number, you look it up in the phone book. If you need to know something about software engineering practices -- you can look it up here.

This book summarizes 40 years of software's best practices into 240 pages. Short, sweet, to the point, and incredibly valuable. High recommended. I browse it about once a week and pull out a gem or two every time.

Highly recommended for all levels of software development organizations, as well as *anyone* who is considering hiring a consultant to develop a software system - including those who may install and maintain your network. A must-read so you'll know what to ask for. I'm recommending that our company us this as the guide for our software quality initiative.

Each principle is a sentence presented on single page followed by an explanation that is frequently only one paragraph long. This the book's virtue: it is written so well and its principles are so carefully chosen that this format delivers a surprising wealth of useful information. In addition, the principles are intelligently cross referenced so that reading a single principle will allow the reader to easily discover several other important related ideas. The principles are also indexed in an excellent reference section at the end of book, which links the principles to the original sources. Finally, it's worth mentioning that this is also an attractive book, a rarity and a blessing since it will likely remain on the bookshelf years after other books have lost their relevance.

Alan Davis has brought together a great deal of common sense in this volume. The references are abundant (well over 100) and each message is, as is claimed, independent of just about everything. You can easily find a way to adopt any policy and adapt it to your development environment. It's good for students in the field and probably a good refresher course for developers.