Monday, September 21, 2020

Book Review: Quick Glance At: Agile Engineering Practices

I don't usually read books that are focused on development of software. However, each year I go to Turkey on vacation, I read something I usually would not, and then take a picture on the balcony of the book I am reading. This time it was for David Tanzer's engineering book. 

Without going much into the content of the book, I found it helpful to have all basic practices in one place. There's stuff about pure functions, side effects, Mikado method, and so forth. There are code examples of not-so-great tests and how to refactor them, reading the book feels like you have an instructor sitting on your side. Even for a person who does not write code for a living, the examples made perfect sense and the refactoring made it obvious how good code needs constant bettering. 

I did not have much expectations when I started reading the book, but going through it has made it evident David Tanzer is a phenomenal character in our profession. Just the fact that he condensed about 7 books into one coherent piece is an example of the clarity of his thinking. And it does come with a price. For the most of it, I had to take a few min break after each chapter just to let the information sink in. 

I think this is a great book for any practitioner and also any middle manager thinking how to get the teams trained up. Especially the ending part about mental health and slowing down resonated with me. After all, even if we know all the best engineering practices, what are we to ourselves if we don't take care of ourselves.