Making Software
by Andy Oram · first published 2010
48% recommend52% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Edited collection of research-based chapters on what evidence says about software practice, such as TDD, code metrics and the 10x programmer myth. Suits engineers who want data over opinion.
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I highly recommend the book "Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It". John Graham-Cumming, the author of the article submitted here, has a review of this book on Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Making-Software-Really-Works-Believe/d...…
on “Some things I've learnt about programming” ↗Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It by Andy Oram & Greg Wilson Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers Our standard text for SE was Software Engineering by Ian Sommerville.
on “Ask HN: Best book to gift someone for getting into software engineering?” ↗Surprised nobody have mentioned Making software, https://www.amazon.com/Making-Software-Really-Works-Believe/... It takes a empirical view on the software process. Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster? Can code metrics predict…
on “Ask HN: Best books on managing software complexity?” ↗…referenced text looks like, pick any of the following: * Code Complete - McConnell * The Economics of Software Quality - Capers Jones * Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering - Robert Glass * Making Software - Oram & Wilson ... and there are many others. Not all references have survived the test of time, L. Bossavit describes in his book " Leprechauns of Software Engineering" how several software development…
on “Software Architecture Guide” ↗…Software Engineering', Robert Glass. Glass presents a list of things everybody knows, or ought to know, and gives both academic and opinionated support and/or critique for why they are and aren't so. 'Making Software', Oram and Wilson. An edited collection of papers on evidence-based software engineering. 'The Deadline', Tom DeMarco. A thinly disguised commercial for his advice on how to organize software development…
on “Ask HN: What language-agnostic programming books should I read?” ↗…and evidence against TDD. My argument is that there isn't enough evidence to make a conclusion.) Given that this is a discourse, have you read any of the discussions of the topic of TDD? For example, "Making Software" (e.g Oram and Wilson) has an excellent chapter summarizing the research results. If not, then it's a rather unbalanced discourse, no? You pointed to a list of papers, but didn't describe what you wanted…
on “How deep are your unit tests?” ↗There's "Making Software" by Oram and Wilson: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596808303.do
on “What Makes Code Hard to Understand?” ↗>why we don't have enough evidence based scientific studies in the world of software If you're interested in this stuff you could do worse than checking out Andy Oram and Greg Wilsons 'Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It' a series of literature reviews on various topics including the 10x programmer thing, different development methodologies and practices. It's not perfect but…
on “10X Programmer and Other Software Engineering Myths” ↗There is a good amount of research on software engineering, I love love love "Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It" by Andy Oram, as it demonstrates the non-opinion-based way of thinking about software engineering. And has some really interesting insights to boot.
on “Test-driven development: A great idea hiding behind a terrible implementation?” ↗* Alan Turing: The Enigma of Intelligence by Andrew Hodges. The definitive biography, with lots of detailed explanations of his work. * Making Software, edited by Oram & Wilson. A bunch of papers about evidence-based software engineering. * Beautiful Code, also edited by Oram & Wilson. A bunch of papers about especially elegant pieces of software. *…
on “Ask HN: Computer Science/History Books?” ↗If you’re looking for something a little more focused I can heartily recommend Andy Oram and Greg Wilson’s “ Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It” it’s a great collection of literature reviews around a lots of common software engineering practices.
on “Evidence-based software engineering: book released” ↗…Bentley. I think there's one Kernighan book I don't own, and they are all gold (if old.) I'd suggest anything and everything written by Gerald Weinberg, starting with what looks most appealing to you now. 'Making Software', edited by Wilson and Oram is chock-full of the latest research of its day (10 years ago.) It's dry, but it presents work of some top SE researchers. Following that group on twitter/Google scholar would…
on “Steve McConnell” ↗The most reputable resource I know of is Making Software, edited by Andy Oram and Greg Wilson.
on “OOP is not that bad” ↗If you're interested in some scientific background to Software Engineering, I can recommend the book "Making Software" (O'reilly) by Andy Oram & Greg Wilson. It's a bit old now, but addresses and challenges many common beliefs about Software Engineering. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/making-software/9780596...
on “Long Term Software Development” ↗…estimate how long a job takes, than to do the job. That is to say, that the complexity of doing a time estimation task is higher than the complexity of task you are estimating. I read this in the book "Making Software: What really works and Why we believe it" [0]. The assumption in the article is that an engineer can produce reliable estimates for complex work, and appropriately guide their managers, and don't think…
on “We are clueless about how long things should take” ↗