Making It Big In Software

The Software Insider’s Guide to Getting Hired and Getting to the Top! Here’s all the information you need to jumpstart your software career: the best ways to get hired, move up, and blaze your way to the top! The software business has radically changed, and this book reveals today’s realities–everything your professors and corporate managers never told you. In his 20 years at IBM as a software architect, senior manager, and lead programmer, Sam Lightstone has briefed dozens of leading companies and universities on careers, new technology, and emerging areas of research. He currently works on one of the world’s largest software development teams and spends a good part of his time recruiting and mentoring software engineers. This book shares all the lessons for success Sam has learned…plus powerful insights from 17 of the industry’s biggest stars. Want to make it big in software? Start right here! Discover how to • Get your next job in software development • Master the nontechnical skills crucial to your success • “Work the org” to move up rapidly • Successfully manage your time, projects, and life • Avoid “killer” mistakes that could destroy your career • Move up to “medium-shot,” “big-shot,” and finally, “visionary” • Launch your own winning software company Exclusive interviews with Steve Wozniak, Inventor, Apple computer John Schwarz, CEO, Business Objects James Gosling, Inventor, Java programming language Marissa Mayer, Google VP, Search Products and User Experience Jon Bentley, Author, Programming Pearls Marc Benioff, CEO and founder, Salesforce.com Grady Booch, IBM Fellow and co-founder Rational Software Bjarne Stroustrup, Inventor, C++ programming language David Vaskevitch, Microsoft CTO Linus Torvalds, Creator, Linux operating system kernel Richard Stallman, Founder, Free software movement Peter Norvig, Google’s Director of Research Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Fellow and Windows Architect Tom Malloy, Adobe Chief Software Architect Diane Greene, Co-founder and past CEO of VMware Robert Kahn, Co-inventor, the Internet Ray Tomlinson, Inventor, email

Many claims are made about how certain tools, technologies, and practices improve software development. But which claims are verifiable, and which are merely wishful thinking? In this book, leading thinkers such as Steve McConnell, Barry Boehm, and Barbara Kitchenham offer essays that uncover the truth and unmask myths commonly held among the software development community. Their insights may surprise you. Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others? Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster? Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software? Do design patterns actually make better software? What effect does personality have on pair programming? What matters more: how far apart people are geographically, or how far apart they are in the org chart? Contributors include: Jorge Aranda Tom Ball Victor R. Basili Andrew Begel Christian Bird Barry Boehm Marcelo Cataldo Steven Clarke Jason Cohen Robert DeLine Madeline Diep Hakan Erdogmus Michael Godfrey Mark Guzdial Jo E. Hannay Ahmed E. Hassan Israel Herraiz Kim Sebastian Herzig Cory Kapser Barbara Kitchenham Andrew Ko Lucas Layman Steve McConnell Tim Menzies Gail Murphy Nachi Nagappan Thomas J. Ostrand Dewayne Perry Marian Petre Lutz Prechelt Rahul Premraj Forrest Shull Beth Simon Diomidis Spinellis Neil Thomas Walter Tichy Burak Turhan Elaine J. Weyuker Michele A. Whitecraft Laurie Williams Wendy M. Williams Andreas Zeller Thomas Zimmermann

Don't engineer by coincidence-design it like you mean it! Filled with practical techniques, Design It! is the perfect introduction to software architecture for programmers who are ready to grow their design skills. Lead your team as a software architect, ask the right stakeholders the right questions, explore design options, and help your team implement a system that promotes the right -ilities. Share your design decisions, facilitate collaborative design workshops that are fast, effective, and fun-and develop more awesome software! With dozens of design methods, examples, and practical know-how, Design It! shows you how to become a software architect. Walk through the core concepts every architect must know, discover how to apply them, and learn a variety of skills that will make you a better programmer, leader, and designer. Uncover the big ideas behind software architecture and gain confidence working on projects big and small. Plan, design, implement, and evaluate software architectures and collaborate with your team, stakeholders, and other architects. Identify the right stakeholders and understand their needs, dig for architecturally significant requirements, write amazing quality attribute scenarios, and make confident decisions. Choose technologies based on their architectural impact, facilitate architecture-centric design workshops, and evaluate architectures using lightweight, effective methods. Write lean architecture descriptions people love to read. Run an architecture design studio, implement the architecture you've designed, and grow your team's architectural knowledge. Good design requires good communication. Talk about your software architecture with stakeholders using whiteboards, documents, and code, and apply architecture-focused design methods in your day-to-day practice. Hands-on exercises, real-world scenarios, and practical team-based decision-making tools will get everyone on board and give you the experience you need to become a confident software architect.

A practical guide to impact mapping, a simple yet incredibly effective method for collaborative strategic planning that helps organizations make an impact with software.

This is the eBook version of the printed book. If the print book includes a CD-ROM, this content is not included within the eBook version. Here's all the information you need to jumpstart your software career: the best ways to get hired, move up, and blaze your way to the top! The software business has radically changed and this book reveals today's realities--everything your professors and career counselors never told you. Author Sam Lightstone has briefed dozens of leading companies and universities on technology careers, trends, and emerging areas of research in his 20 years of employment a.

This is a practical guide to success for early software vendors with growth ambitions. Drawing on in-depth interviews with the founders of established success stories, the book highlights the lessons to be learnt for the current generation of software entrepreneurs. It illuminates the key stages in the software growth cycle, providing a means to blend the ingredients of success into a winning business formula. The book details the factors underpinning successful start-ups from creating a customer-centric product and a balanced management team to securing equity funding and undertaking an IPO. Furthermore, it delivers valuable guidance on formulating and executing a winning business model. The book provides useful advice on forming effective partnerships and indirect sales channels, as well as defining the many success criteria required to build a thriving export business.

Today, software engineers need to know not only how to program effectively but also how to develop proper engineering practices to make their codebase sustainable and healthy. This book emphasizes this difference between programming and software engineering. How can software engineers manage a living codebase that evolves and responds to changing requirements and demands over the length of its life? Based on their experience at Google, software engineers Titus Winters and Hyrum Wright, along with technical writer Tom Manshreck, present a candid and insightful look at how some of the world’s leading practitioners construct and maintain software. This book covers Google’s unique engineering culture, processes, and tools and how these aspects contribute to the effectiveness of an engineering organization. You’ll explore three fundamental principles that software organizations should keep in mind when designing, architecting, writing, and maintaining code: How time affects the sustainability of software and how to make your code resilient over time How scale affects the viability of software practices within an engineering organization What trade-offs a typical engineer needs to make when evaluating design and development decisions

In Offshore Software Development: Making It Work, hands-on managers of Offshore solutions help you answer these questions: What is Offshore and why is it an IT imperative? What do you need to do to successfully evaluate an Offshore solution? How do you avoid common pitfalls? How do you confront security an

Printed in full color. To keep doing what you love, you need to maintain your own systems, not just the ones you write code for. Regular exercise and proper nutrition help you learn, remember, concentrate, and be creative--skills critical to doing your job well. Learn how to change your work habits, master exercises that make working at a computer more comfortable, and develop a plan to keep fit, healthy, and sharp for years to come. Small changes to your habits can improve your health--without getting in the way of your work. The Healthy Programmer gives you a daily plan of action that's incremental and iterative just like the software development processes you're used to. Every tip, trick, and best practice is backed up by the advice of doctors, scientists, therapists, nutritionists, and numerous fitness experts. We'll review the latest scientific research to understand how being healthy is good for your body and mind. You'll start by adding a small amount of simple activity to your day--no trips to the gym needed. You'll learn how to mitigate back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches, and many other common sources of pain. You'll also learn how to refactor your diet to properly fuel your body without gaining weight or feeling hungry. Then, you'll turn the exercises and activities into a pragmatic workout methodology that doesn't interfere with the demands of your job and may actually improve your cognitive skills. You'll also learn the secrets of prominent figures in the software community who turned their health around by making diet and exercise changes. Throughout, you'll track your progress with a "companion iPhone app". Finally, you'll learn how to make your healthy lifestyle pragmatic, attainable, and fun. If you're going to live well, you should enjoy it. Disclaimer This book is intended only as an informative guide for those wishing to know more about health issues. In no way is this book intended to replace, countermand, or conflict with the advice given to you by your own healthcare provider including Physician, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, Registered Dietician, and other licensed professionals. Keep in mind that results vary from person to person. This book is not intended as a substitute for medical or nutritional advice from a healthcare provider or dietician. Some people have a medical history and/or condition and/or nutritional requirements that warrant individualized recommendations and, in some cases, medications and healthcare surveillance. Do not start, stop, or change medication and dietary recommendations without professional medical and/or Registered Dietician advice. A healthcare provider should be consulted if you are on medication or if there are any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention. Do not change your diet if you are ill, or on medication except under the supervision of a healthcare provider. Neither this, nor any other book or discussion forum is intended to take the place of personalized medical care of treatment provided by your healthcare provider. This book was current as of January, 2013 and as new information becomes available through research, experience, or changes to product contents, some of the data in this book may become invalid. You should seek the most up to date information on your medical care and treatment from your health care professional. The ultimate decision concerning care should be made between you and your healthcare provider. Information in this book is general and is offered with no guarantees on the part of the author, editor or The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. The author, editors and publisher disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.