Software Development Pearls: Lessons from Fifty Years of Software Experience

Drawing on 20+ years helping software teams succeed in nearly 150 organizations, Karl Wiegers presents 60 concise lessons and practical recommendations students can apply to all kinds of projects, regardless of application domain, technology, development lifecycle, or platform infrastructure.

Software Development Pearls covers multiple crucial domains of project success: requirements, design, project management, culture and teamwork, quality, and process improvement. Each chapter suggests several "first steps" and "next steps" to help you begin immediately applying the author''s hard-won lessons—and writing code that is more successful in every way that matters.

"Karl is one of the most thoughtful software people I know. He has reflected deeply on the software development irritants he has encountered over his career, and this book contains 60 of his most valuable responses."
-- From the Foreword by  Steve McConnell, Construx Software and author of  Code Complete

"Wouldn''t it be great to gain a lifetime''s experience without having to pay for the inevitable errors of your own experience? Karl Wiegers is well versed in the best techniques of business analysis, software engineering, and project management. You''ll gain concise but important insights into how to recover from setbacks as well as how to avoid them in the first place."
--Meilir Page-Jones, Senior Business Analyst, Wayland Systems Inc.

• Clarify requirements to gain a shared vision and understanding of your real problem
• Create robust designs that implement the right functionality and quality attributes and can evolve
• Anticipate and avoid ubiquitous project management pitfalls
• Grow a culture in which behaviors actually align with what people claim to value
• Plan realistically for quality and build it in from the outset
• Use process improvement to achieve desired business results, not as an end in itself
• Choose your next steps to get full value from all these lessons