On these long weekends I decided to look through the following book “Code Leader: Using People, Tools, and Processes to Build Successful Software”, that somebody recommended me recently, only for a single reason – a couple of years ago I planned to write the set of articles about the tools and approaches of the modern development process.

In this book author directs you through important aspects of modern software development process. He describes how process should be organized, which tools, libraries and patterns should be used almost for all projects. It’s not a guideline to follow, but a good sample of what to use and to support the process of development.

Book is written for those who are just stepping into Team Lead positions and want to understand the pillars of this role. Experienced guys won’t find a lot of useful stuff in this book. I’d say that book will be useful for those who have 3-5 years of development experience.

Book consists from 12 chapters and begins from the moment when project starts and guides you to debugging and error handling.

Chapter 1: Buy, Not Build
Chapter 2: Test-Driven Development
Chapter 3: Continuous Integration
Chapter 4: Done Is Done
Chapter 5: Testing
Chapter 6: Source Control
Chapter 7: Static Analysis
Chapter 8: Contract, Contract, Contract
Chapter 9: Limiting Dependencies
Chapter 10: The Model-View-Presenter (MVP) Model
Chapter 11: Tracing
Chapter 12: Error Handling

I would like to highlight the most interesting sentences in this book

• “Writing code is fun, but writing high-quality code on time and at the lowest possible cost is what makes a software project successful”
• “They don’t hire us to write code. They hire us to solve problems using software”
• “The key is evaluating the benefits versus cost at the level of individual software components”
• “Writing software that could have been purchased at less cost is a good way to get your project cancelled”
• “The important part is to focus on the key piece of your project, which provides the most business value to your customers. That is, after all, our real job. Writing code is fun, but what we really do is solve problems for business owners.”
• “The idea was that writing your tests first forced you into thinking about tests, which in turn encouraged you to write more”
• “The primary tenet of Continuous Integration (CI) is ‘‘integrate early and often.’’ The more often you integrate, the less work it is for everyone”
• “Nothing paralyses a team faster than trying to reach consensus on every design point”
• “It really requires the architect to be involved at code level across large swaths of the software”

Recently I was parked into the SharePoint 2007 project, which is overly customized. Luckily, it relates to WSS then to MOSS. After the first week spent in this project I understood that the SharePoint is the only application when you need to read the RTFM before starting it :) Because, despite how you good as developer it doesn't make any sense with gettin' into the SharePoint. All that specific stuff relates to understanding the SharePoint structure and how it works. Without this knowledge you will fail even with the simplest task.

So, the SharePoint architecture is the vital thing you need to know when you start in this area, but where to start from first? I've scrutinized the resources and found the next book very useful for SharePoints newbies

Amazon.com: Inside Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (Pro Developer) (Pro Developer): Books: Ted Pattison,Daniel Larson

ISBN: 0735623201
ISBN-13: 9780735623200

Book is really good, and describes all necessary aspects which are required for the quick start in SharePoint

Mirror: Crouch start in SharePoint

Programming Windows Workflow Foundation: Practical WF Techniques and Examples using XAML and C# by K, Scott Allen Read more about this title...

Published the review of this book on our team blog: http://devkids.blogspot.com/2007/04/book-review.html

O'Reilly published the following book:

Windows Developer Power Tools: Turbocharge Windows Development with More Than 140 Free and Open Source Tools by James Avery, Jim Holmes Read more about this title...

In this books authors described the most important tools and libraries that must be used in work by each developer.

The covered topics are:

• Web libraries
• WinForms libraries
• General Code Libraries
• Generating code libs
• Alternative .NET IDEs
• Creating documentation
• VS IDE add-ins
• Tools to analyze and test your code
• Tools for the continuous integrations
• Tools for the team collaboration
• Bug tracking tools
• Debugging and troubleshooting applications
• Tools to tightening up the security
• O/R Mapping Tools and libraries
• Tools, libs and add-ins to enhance Web Development
• and more another tools

I found this book really useful and rate is as "must-read".

Strongly recommend to read.