Dynamics of Software Development - Softcover

Mccarthy, Jim; Mccarthy, Michele

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0735623198 ISBN 13: 9780735623194

Publisher: Microsoft Press US, 2006

Synopsis

In 1995, Jim McCarthy captured the attention of the software development industry with DYNAMICS OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT—offering thought-provoking ideas, techniques, and strategies for delivering great software on time in the real world. Now, this classic book is back—complete with new insights and additional material.

You get the 54 original Rules—including new commentary for the 2006 Edition—with realistic guidance for organizing, managing, and working on any software development team. Adding to these insights, the McCarthys meditate on three new Rules exploring the balance of critical relationships among team members.

You’ll also briefly examine The Core. A system of protocols stemming from The Rules, The Core helps teams reach a shared vision and work together more effectively to deliver great software.

To complete the McCarthys’ tapestry, this 2006 Edition includes a CD with the original video presentation that sparked this book’s first edition and helped influence an entire generation’s approach to software development.

CD features:

• Video of Jim’s popular presentation: 23 ½ Rules of Thumb (For Shipping Great Software on Time)
• Four episodes of The McCarthy Show

A Note Regarding the CD or DVD

The print version of this book ships with a CD or DVD. For those customers purchasing one of the digital formats in which this book is available, we are pleased to offer the CD/DVD content as a free download via O'Reilly Media's Digital Distribution services. To download this content, please visit O'Reilly's web site, search for the title of this book to find its catalog page, and click on the link below the cover image (Examples, Companion Content, or Practice Files). Note that while we provide as much of the media content as we are able via free download, we are sometimes limited by licensing restrictions. Please direct any questions or concerns to booktech@oreilly.com.

About this title

From the Back Cover

McCarthy has distilled a veteran's hard-won know-how into 54 memorable, pragmatic maxims - short essays on defining, building, shipping, and marketing software successfully, whether commercially or in-house. With a grown-up wit that's by turns homespun and sophisticated, McCarthy tells you how to maintain your cool ("Don't Flip the Bozo Bit"), organize a crack team ("Get Their Heads into the Game"), analyze the customer and the competition ("Alone? A Market Without a Competitor Ain't"), handle uncertainty and schedule slips ("When You Slip, Don't Fall"), make commitments with integrity ("Be like the Doctors"), and stabilize the product so that you can ship it ("Don't Shake the Jell-O"). McCarthy shows you how to develop a marketing message and how to launch your product too, and in the appendix, he tells you how to hire smart people and keep them happy and productive. Along the way, McCarthy meditates on software aesthetics and familiar software development phenomena - the "death march to Egghead", burn-out, internecine quarrels, being lost in software, the software dream and successive awakenings, the self-critical customer. McCarthy's preoccupation with the dynamics of the process infected his brother, artist Patrick McCarthy, with a sense of the "rich, deep, psychocultural extravaganza" that is software development, and themes both humorous and dark emerge in the handsome illustrations for the book. You'll find Dynamics of Software Development as engrossing and exciting as software development itself. This book is destined to be read by software designers, developers, marketers, technical managers, and industry insiders for many years to come.

About the Author

Michele McCarthy developed many of the team formation concepts that McCarthy Technologies teaches and is a codeveloper of the Core 3.0 Protocols. Michele is the coauthor of Software for Your Head.

Jim McCarthy is president of McCarthy Technologies, a consultancy that helps develop high-performance software development teams worldwide. Before starting his business, Jim worked at Microsoft Corporation for many years and led the team that developed Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0.

Edition details

• Publisher: Microsoft Press US
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0735623198
• ISBN 13: 9780735623194
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 224