Book Image

Agile Technical Practices Distilled

By : Pedro M. Santos, Marco Consolaro, Alessandro Di Gioia
Book Image

Agile Technical Practices Distilled

By: Pedro M. Santos, Marco Consolaro, Alessandro Di Gioia

Overview of this book

The number of popular technical practices has grown exponentially in the last few years. Learning the common fundamental software development practices can help you become a better programmer. This book uses the term Agile as a wide umbrella and covers Agile principles and practices, as well as most methodologies associated with it. You’ll begin by discovering how driver-navigator, chess clock, and other techniques used in the pair programming approach introduce discipline while writing code. You’ll then learn to safely change the design of your code using refactoring. While learning these techniques, you’ll also explore various best practices to write efficient tests. The concluding chapters of the book delve deep into the SOLID principles - the five design principles that you can use to make your software more understandable, flexible and maintainable. By the end of the book, you will have discovered new ideas for improving your software design skills, the relationship within your team, and the way your business works.
Table of Contents (31 chapters)
Free Chapter
1
Section 1
7
Section 2
13
Section 3
19
Section 4
25
Chapter 21
28
License: CyberDojo

Mistakes versus Defects: Feedback Is the Cure (Again)

Shingo differentiates between mistakes, which are inevitable as part of the nature of human beings, and defects, which are mistakes that manage to get through the system and reach the customer. Poka-yoke seeks to prevent mistakes from becoming defects.

In the context of software development, we use the catchy word bugs to identify defects, and the test suites are our poka-yoke.

So the key enabling factor in preventing defects is having a mechanism to gather feedback in our processes for all the important aspects of development. The quicker the feedback, the more effective, because identifying mistakes early is what prevents the waste of working on an incorrect product and sending it downstream.

If you see things in this way, most of the activities we do, be they methodological or technical, derive from an agile mindset and are oriented to gathering quick feedback for the different aspects of our work.

Figure 17.1: Agile feedback loops ...