Ronīs intention with this book is to show that iterative and incremental software development works. And that it works especially well on projects where requirements are evolving and/or the technical or even the business domain is new to the people doing the work. He refers to this way of working throughout the book. However, I think probably the only thing that I sort of disliked about the book is how profusely he apologizes for this seemingly simplistic, risky way of programming without any Big-Design-Up-Front. That irritation is likely due to the fact that I also consider this a very good way of creating software so it gets a little tiresome reading those same apologies over and over.
The book is written in a very conversational style that makes it an easy read and even though it kills a lot more trees I found it good that the code gets repeated throughout as it morphs into being. The writing is quite good and the way he tells his story is very captivating. One is able to feel frustrated, relieved, gloomy and victorious along with Ron because he makes you feel that this is your project too and almost as if you have a say in its implementation.
Ron has a lot of good advice to offer and he drops numerous great tips that any programmer would benefit from reading. These tips concern general design of software, programming techniques, planning, learning, estimating and listening to yourself and the code.
On the whole I feel a better software developer for reading it and I highly recommend it.
--DadiIngolfsson 25.3.2004
Yeah, I would certainly recommend it to a C# newbie. However, I donīt see it as an introduction to C# even though Jeffries himself is a C# newbie as heīs writing the book. Itīs much more of a hands-on introduction to the XP style of software development. Jeffries just uses C# and .NET for this purpose. --DadiIngolfsson
I'm about 50 pages in and loving it. What an excellent, and truly unique, book. It's the next best thing to pair programming with RonJeffries?. --DaveHoover
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