Fat Agnus

I loved Code Complete so much that I was hooked on reading more from Steve McConnell and that`s how I came across Rapid Development.

Every developer, manager etc. has been on a project that seems to never end and it is a painful affair to be apart of such projects. The list of bugs seems to grow faster then the developers can fix them, requirements changes frequently and the time schedule has been made to unrealistic by the upper management etc.

The book contains a lot of case studies of classic mistakes (which is great) and even though the book was first published back in 1996, many of the mistakes are still going on today. So it seems like we aren`t getting smarter when it comes to develop software and that is why we should read this book. It will help you get the development schedule under control (even when it first starts to slip).

Some of the mistakes he describes are

• “Code-like-hell” programming
• Silver-Bullet syndrome
• Adding people to a late project
• Gold plating
• Feature creep

Besides all the classic mistakes that are mentioned, he also writes about what is consider best practices and just like Code Complete, he has a lot of hard data to backup it up with (which I really like).

I would strongly recommend this book to everyone who is involved in the software business (you might also benefit from it if you are dealing with something else)

See here for more information about Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules