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Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software

Average customer rating:

Computer Science graduates please read
Should be required reading for junior programmers
vital skills for a developer
I was expecting more..
A shallow list of development tools without much added value

Coder to Developer: Tools and Strategies for Delivering Your Software
Mike Gunderloy , and Sybex
Manufacturer: Sybex
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 078214327X

Book Description

"Two thumbs up"
—Gregory V. Wilson, Dr. Dobbs Journal (October 2004)

No one can disparage the ability to write good code. At its highest levels, it is an art.

But no one can confuse writing good code with developing good software. The difference—in terms of challenges, skills, and compensation—is immense.

Coder to Developer helps you excel at the many non-coding tasks entailed, from start to finish, in just about any successful development project. What's more, it equips you with the mindset and self-assurance required to pull it all together, so that you see every piece of your work as part of a coherent process. Inside, you'll find plenty of technical guidance on such topics as:

Choosing and using a source code control system
Code generation tools--when and why
Preventing bugs with unit testing
Tracking, fixing, and learning from bugs
Application activity logging
Streamlining and systematizing the build process
Traditional installations and alternative approaches

To pull all of this together, the author has provided the source code for Download Tracker, a tool for organizing your collection of downloaded code, that's used for examples throughout this book. The code is provided in various states of completion, reflecting every stage of development, so that you can dig deep into the actual process of building software. But you'll also develop "softer" skills, in areas such as team management, open source collaboration, user and developer documentation, and intellectual property protection. If you want to become someone who can deliver not just good code but also a good product, this book is the place to start. If you must build successful software projects, it's essential reading.

Download Description

""Two thumbs up"" --Gregory V. Wilson, Dr. Dobbs Journal (October 2004) No one can disparage the ability to write good code. At its highest levels, it is an art. But no one can confuse writing good code with developing good software. The difference in terms of challenges, skills, and compensation is immense. Coder to Developer helps you excel at the many non-coding tasks entailed, from start to finish, in just about any successful development project. What's more, it equips you with the mindset and self-assurance required to pull it all together, so that you see every piece of your work as part of a coherent process. Inside, you'll find plenty of technical guidance on such topics as: Choosing and using a source code control system Code generation tools--when and why Preventing bugs with unit testing Tracking, fixing, and learning from bugs Application activity logging Streamlining and systematizing the build process Traditional installations and alternative approaches To pull all of this together, the author has provided the source code for Download Tracker, a tool for organizing your collection of downloaded code, that's used for examples throughout this book. The code is provided in various states of completion, reflecting every stage of development, so that you can dig deep into the actual process of building software. But you'll also develop ""softer"" skills, in areas such as team management, open source collaboration, user and developer documentation, and intellectual property protection. If you want to become someone who can deliver not just good code but also a good product, this book is the place to start. If you must build successful software projects, it's essential reading.

Customer Reviews:

Computer Science graduates please read.......2006-10-24

Thorough but readable reference book for developers who have a clear idea of how to code, but may not have thought about all the supporting activities and tools to help do them. Probably more appropriate for new developers just out of university, where computer science, but not necessarily software development, is taught. Written for developers in small companies, but addresses same topics that apply in large companies too.

Should be required reading for junior programmers.......2006-03-05

This is a book that, while probably beneficial to all coders, seems particularly useful to junior programmers and technical managers. If you are a more experienced developer and/or don't develop using .NET, then you will find yourself skimming about a third of the book. Before you decide that a automatically disregarding a large portion of a book's contents qualifies that book as not worthwhile, I would point out that the other two-thirds of the contents make up for any "deficiencies." The important thing that this book does is provide a list of sorts of all of the areas that are important for a high-quality developer (or manager) to bear in mind.

Gunderloy walks through the development process, from planning to delivery, discussing many of the ideas and processes that one learns by working on a high-quality software development team. Many of the code snippets or details concerning tools are MS, if not .NET, specific. However, a junior programmer will likely learn a number of things by reading these sections - even if they do not develop .NET applications. More experienced programmers may even discover some useful notions as they peruse these sections. The key here is that Gunderloy is covering the span of the software development process instead of addressing a single area in depth. Thus, where the reader may have a number of areas of expertise, he or she stands a good chance of shoring up weaknesses in those regions between areas of expertise.

As this book is a relatively quick read and covers a wide area in less than 300 pages, it goes without saying that none of the areas discussed are covered in great depth. However, after reading it, one is more likely to be able to effectively investigate weak areas. Gunderloy does provide some useful starting places to begin these explorations.

vital skills for a developer.......2005-10-25

Gunderloy assumes you can already program well. But he shows how making a commercial product means you need extra skills. It is the assimilation of these skills that makes you into a developer, in his eyes.

Unit testing is one of these skills. Vital in verifying that crucial routines work. While this might not be feasible for all routines, you should aspire to do so as much as possible. Plus, it would be good if the unit tests could be run in an automated fashion. So that you can easily and often test.

Another necessary trait is to use a source code control system. So that you can roll back to an earlier known good version if necessary. More importantly, it enables a team of programmers to work on the same code base.

Having a streamlined build is also good. It is convenient to be able to type 'make' [or the equivalent] and have all your code compile.

I was expecting more.........2005-06-26

Most of the tips offered in this book are basic. As a senior majoring in CS, there was little that I had not heard before. One strong point of the book, however, is how Gunderloy ties together all the loose ends of the development cycle. This book gives an excellent high-level overview of everything that should be happening throughout a development cycle, from project conception to release date and beyond.

The book is very heavily tied to VS .NET 2003; many chapters are little more than listings and explanation of VS add-ons and extensions, giving little value to anyone not using this particular IDE.

A shallow list of development tools without much added value.......2005-05-23

The book tries to cover the whole of the software development process from planning, team management, coding best practices and finally creating an installer and releasing the product. With such a broad range of topics each one is only treated very superfluosly and shallow. The author has a very tool centric view on things and as such many chapters are just a market overview of available software for the task at hand. I don't think this is of much use for the reader since that is exactly the kind of information you can gather in half an hour of internet research with google - and even after reading the book you'd still have to do this research anyways in order to gather current prices for the latest gadgets. All software solutions presented in the book are for windows only and Microsoft's tools seem to get extra focus and attention. The intended target audience for the book are independant developers and small software shops. As such the author assumes that you are wearing multiple hats and are filling all kinds of different roles from designer to coder to management. I very much liked this perspective on the software world because for one thing I am one such lone wolf developer and second because there are already tons of software books for the large corporate software developer. Those books typically assume loads of process and management and different departments etc which all don't apply for the single developer. Two important things missing in the book's coverage are two chapters: One for the time before concrete planning actually begins on the question of "what to develop" and determining markets. Another one for the other end of the road on how to market your software, how to price it and how to present and distribute it. If those were included I think the book would truly cover the complete process a lone developer goes through from idea to product.
All in all, the book gave me little new information but a good checklist to work through on a project.

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