Ron Jeffries
ISBN 81-7853-088-0. 500 pgs / Indian edition available
I completed my run thru a couple of days back. Since I purchased this book, I feel I am entitled to a a review (which I am always). So here goes..
Ron's style of writing is nice... technique sprinkled with good humor. In this book, Ron is new to C# and needs an XML editor for his web site (Xprogramming.com - which is also good). The book is the result of these circumstances. So Ron places you on his ear and lets you peek while he goes about writing an XML editor, tailored to his needs while simultaneously practicing XP (okay so he cheats once in a while but who doesn't. As I found out, it's pretty tempting when you don't have a pair and you suffer from 'Let me see if this hack would work!'.
The sublime moral that Ron drops on you every now and then is that it is okay to not have a detailed design upfront, rather get a rough working model and keep chipping till you are done. (And you are done when all your tests run! XP Explained - 'XP Yoda' Kent Beck). This approach along with periodic reflection and refactoring gives much better results.
I tried this with a problem in Ruby (this should be my next post) and I am happy with my work.
As a chronic whiner, I felt that the "Undo" chapters don't seem right where Ron is faced with a design-breaking XP story. I'll have to re-read those once again.
All in all **** stars, pick this up - should have a lasting effect on the way you code.
ISBN 81-7853-088-0. 500 pgs / Indian edition available
I completed my run thru a couple of days back. Since I purchased this book, I feel I am entitled to a a review (which I am always). So here goes..
Ron's style of writing is nice... technique sprinkled with good humor. In this book, Ron is new to C# and needs an XML editor for his web site (Xprogramming.com - which is also good). The book is the result of these circumstances. So Ron places you on his ear and lets you peek while he goes about writing an XML editor, tailored to his needs while simultaneously practicing XP (okay so he cheats once in a while but who doesn't. As I found out, it's pretty tempting when you don't have a pair and you suffer from 'Let me see if this hack would work!'.
The sublime moral that Ron drops on you every now and then is that it is okay to not have a detailed design upfront, rather get a rough working model and keep chipping till you are done. (And you are done when all your tests run! XP Explained - 'XP Yoda' Kent Beck). This approach along with periodic reflection and refactoring gives much better results.
I tried this with a problem in Ruby (this should be my next post) and I am happy with my work.
As a chronic whiner, I felt that the "Undo" chapters don't seem right where Ron is faced with a design-breaking XP story. I'll have to re-read those once again.
All in all **** stars, pick this up - should have a lasting effect on the way you code.
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