Reviews for Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World (Pragmatic Programmers)

1. More useful for inexperienced developers

   Rated 3 out of 5 stars, November 12th, 2006

   I had read a few reviews on this book, all positive so I was really looking forward to reading it.
   
   While the book encourages some very worthwhile and useful techniques I did find that many of the tips were practices that any reasonable software developer should be considering as a matter of course, not just to be agile.
   
   I would say that this is an excellent read for developers with only a few years of experience with some great tips on how to be more productive.
   
   However for more experienced people it should just be memory jogger and give you a chance to become enthused and really try to do the 'right' things again. Get through the 'software is alot like surfing' analogies and some of the more ivory tower comments (try telling you boss that a late fix cannot go in because as a developer you do not have authority to degrade company assets i.e. the source code) and focus on the real points of the text, often seemingly obvious but its surprising how few developers and projects follow the any sort of methodology at all.

2. Intelligent and Informative

   Rated 5 out of 5 stars, July 12th, 2006

   I've worked as a web developer for 10 years and in that time I've worked for numerous companies. I wish every one of them had read this book and taken lessons from it.
   
   If you've been in the position where processes aren't working, projects are a nightmare race to deadline, the team isn't cohesive. If you're thinking surely theres a better way to run projects than this, then this is the book for you.
   
   Intelligently written and well argued, it covers many concepts you may well already be familiar with and gives them some foundation and practical ways in which they can be adopted.
   
   If you wish to be a better developer in a better team buy this book.