The Nature of Software Development, by Ron Jeffries

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5 stars

I’ve had this book on my shelf for quite a while, and I’m not really sure why. Honestly, I now regret not having read it sooner. It’s a truly superb work and also a very enjoyable read.

To summarize briefly, the book offers a general overview of the author’s thoughts on agile software development. Jeffries touches on all the important aspects of the topic: work organization, optimizing value delivery, technical practices, software design, team composition, and more.

The text is primarily aimed at people in leadership roles in a broad sense, so it doesn’t delve too deeply into technical details—but it does go deep enough to clarify his general stance on core topics such as testing, refactoring, design, defects, infrastructure, etc.

The author, in addition to being one of the original signatories of the Agile Manifesto, comes from the eXtreme Programming (XP) world. These two influences are very present throughout the book. That said, this is not a book about XP or anything of the sort. It’s full of thoughtful and valuable reflections on how to work in software projects, but without any intention of laying out a specific methodology or framework. In fact, many of the typical XP topics are absent. I was particularly glad to find no lengthy discussions on abstract principles and values—a subject that tends to bore me greatly.

While reading, I often felt in complete agreement, that uncanny sense that someone has read your mind. Without a doubt, this is a book I highly recommend.