Software Development Pearls: Lessons from Fifty Years of Software Experience

Useful — Immediately
I’m a software developer with some decades’ experience. I own dozens of books on software … that I’ve never read. This one, by contrast, I have indeed read. I love it. It’s easy to digest, and it helps me to implement these ideas so that the suggestions are immediately useful.By contrast, so many other “get better at making software” books are overly abstruse. They just remind me that there is such a wide gap between where I am and where I need to be, yet how to apply what I learn remains nebulous.Karl’s book is very different from that. It is clear and informative, but best of all: he helps me implement his suggestions so that my professional skills are improved right away, as a result.

Well Written with Impressive Content
Software Development Pearls: Lessons from 50 years of software experienceBy Karl WiegersPublished by Addison-Wesley, 2022Review by Robert L. Glass, author of Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering, and a couple of dozen other computing/software booksI like everything Karl Wiegers writes. He writes it well, and he has impressive content. This book is no exception. I suppose that means either this is a glowing review, or it s so biased you needn’t read any further!The book is, as the title says, a collection of programming pearls, 60 in all, presented as “lessons.” It is organized in chapters regarding requirements, design, project management, culture and teamwork, quality, process improvement, and the final chapter, What to do next? Each chapter is preceded by a “first steps” section and concluded with a “next steps” one.I like to judge a book on, among other things, the number of “pithy quotes” (alias pearls of wisdom) the author chooses in the book. Here are several of then from this one:In the section titled “Requirements are Foundational,” the author quotes a seminar attendee as asking “How do companies that are really good at requirements handle them?” and then comes up with the wonderfully apt answer “I don’t know; they don’t call me” (presumably because they don’t need his consulting help).Lesson 12, in the section “Elicitation techniques,” is “Requirements elicitation must bring the customer’s voice close to the developer’s ear.” In the section “Progressive Refinement of Detail,” the author notes “I could never discover all the requirements up front, even for a small application. … But that’s OK…”Under lesson 9, the author says “If someone finds problems with my requirements, it doesn’t matter how good I think they are.”At the beginning of the chapter on Design, he says “The boundary between requirements and design is a fuzzy grey area, not a crisp black line.”In lesson 21, he says “An ounce of design is worth a pound of recording.”And lesson 24 is “Don’t give anyone an estimate off the top of your head.” In the section “Where did you get that number?” he notes “Hope is not a strategy.”After lesson 33, he concludes “The customer is not always right, but the customer always has a point.”Appropriate to contemporary issues, lesson 38 is “People talk a lot about their rights, but the flip side of every right is a responsibility.”And lesson 49 is “Software people love tools, but a fool with a tool is an amplified fool.”And finally, this light bulb joke:Q: How many process improvement leaders does it take to change a light bulb?A: Only one, but the light bulb must be willing to change.”I find only one fault with the book. Its subtitle, you will note, says it is about “50 years of software experience.” But its back jacket says, much more modestly, that the author draws on “25+ years helping software teams succeed.” Which is it? Or is there a subtle difference between the two measurements?

I’ve become a BA after reading K.W.‘s Software Requirements. Now I’m impressed yet again with all the “know how” that he is sharing in this book. These are indeed the pearls. Totally recommend to software professionals – PMs, BAs, QAs, and the end clients of course.

He’s best book to date! Easy to read and great experience content in these pages. Do yourself a favour and get a copy!