Software project survival guide
by Steve McConnell · first published 1997
80% recommend20% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Practical guide to running software projects, covering estimation, planning and management issues. Recommended to new project leads and developers moving into management, often alongside Brooks and PeopleWare.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
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…career. Many years ago I was just a young developer completely immersed in tech and algorithms, but I was frustrated that the teams I was involved with weren't better at making software. Code Complete, Software Project Survival Guide, and his other writings really helped me appreciate how important craftsmanship, design, process, and forethought are to a project's success. I've never been under the impression that he figured it all…
on “Steve McConnell” ↗…that project is very different than project management on a website that delivers incremental revisions every week? Sorry, but you clearly have some things to learn. Go pick up http://www.amazon.com/Software-Project-Survival-Guide-Practi... and learn what a stand alone project on the scale of that game needs to do just to have a reasonable chance of success. Virtually none of that book applies to the incrementally developed website.…
on “Stroustrup: What Should We Teach New Software Developers?” ↗…advancing towards my goal, and 90% was bureaucracy (compared to 20% bureaucracy in C, 5% in Python and 0.001% in K) And as for books, I recommend Jon Bentley's "Programming Pearls" series, Steve McConnell's "Software Project Survival Guide" and DeMarco and Lister's "PeopleWare". The last two have more to do with project (and people) management than with software engineering - but you will need these skills much earlier than you'd expect,…
on “Ask HN: Books for soon to be Software Engineers” ↗McConnell, Steve. Code Complete. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1993. McConnell, Steve. Software Project Survival Guide. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1998. Maguire, Steve. Writing Solid Code. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press, 1993. Ranade and Nash. The Elements of C Programming Style. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992. Kernighan…
on “Ask HN: What are the books you wish your colleagues had read?” ↗…Spark by Dr John J. Ratey, Eric Hagerman, John Ratey. The One Thing by Gary Keller, Jay Papasan. The Mythical Man Month by Frederick P. Brooks. A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs by Tren Griffin. Software Project Survival Guide by Steve Mcconnell. The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. I Wonder What I'm Thinking About? by Moose Allain. Truth, Lies & Statistics by Lee Baker. On shortness of life by Seneca.
on “Ask HN: Favorite nonfiction books of 2018?” ↗As an introduction to software development processes I recommend Steve McConnell's Software Project Survival Guide. You can get a used copy for small money.
on “Software Engineering Body of Knowledge” ↗High Output Management - for general management issues. Software Project Survival Guide - for software specific issues. (Don't be discourged by all the documents it discusses.)
on “Ask HN: Books to read when you transform from SWE into SWE Management?” ↗…panacea, but I'm shocked at how few people in these positions have heard of them, let alone read them. For example, the Microsoft Press books form the 90s are great. Debugging the Development Process, Software Project Survival Guide, Writing Solid Code, Rapid Development, and then books like The Mythical Man-Month, and Peopleware. Just a passing familiarity is all I ask. But no. Favored people and 'can't be hit by a bus' people get…
on “Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture” ↗Look for all these at Amazon: Death March PeopleWare Debugging the development process Rapid Development Software Project Survival guide If you are a CTO you should probably read them all. The most important book for software development management is: The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli The problems that you describe in your post however…
on “New CTO. How do I manage developers and report to CEO?” ↗…;) This is my list: I'm in a similar situation and the pressure is mostly caused by a lack of management. I've been appointed project leader halfway the project and I did my homework by reading the Software Project Survival Guide. We are also supposed to work in a scrum system, but on going business causes scrum to be just an extensive time management tool. We're nearing the deadline and a few things I picked up are: 1) You…
on “How should I behave as a developer in a project that's headed for failure?” ↗How to price a project. Hmmmm. As a project strategist-manager, recommend the books Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art (2006) and Software Project Survival Guide (1998). Used the SPSG templates as the basis of my pricing process. SPSG book is one of the few books that still sits in my bookshelf
on “For the freelancers out there: Pricing a Project” ↗His "Software Project Survival Guide" is great too, a bit dated but a great read. Saved more than one project that was close to the abyss when I joined.
on “Cargo Cult Software Engineering (2000)” ↗Mythical Man-Month and Software Project Survival Guide
on “Programming books you might want to consider reading” ↗I couldn't find it either but in addition to "Code Complete" this data is also shown in a chart in "The Software Project Survival Guide", also by Steve McConnell (p29). The attribution is "Researchers have found" but Boehm and Papaccio are listed in the references.
on “An apology to readers of Test-Driven iOS Development” ↗…Strategies for Staying Focused, Hitting Ship Dates, and Building Solid Teams (1994) http://www.amazon.com/Debugging-Development-Process-Practica... edit: Or maybe it was Steve McConnell's you recommend?: Software Project Survival Guide (Microsoft, 1997) http://www.amazon.com/Software-Project-Survival-Developer-Pr...
on “Investigate switching away from GitHub” ↗