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

Complex Systems and Proven Solutions

In complex systems, context becomes the driving force; strategies and solutions are not safely repeatable. There are no silver bullets, and what worked before might not work tomorrow for a different situation since the new contextual information will be different.

We agree with Alberto when he says, “Conservative organizations are usually reluctant to fully embrace the consequences of complexity. Risk-adverse culture manifests itself in the pursuit of proven solutions rather than adventurous experimental ones in controlled environments or forms.”

Unfortunately, in complex domains, there is no such thing as a “proven solution.” Like in football, hiring the best coach with the longest winning streak does not guarantee that your team will win the championship next year.

In practice, being dogmatically risk-averse turns out to be a very risky strategy in a complex domain. And, we might add, incredibly wasteful.

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