The Big Four

There are many concerns for software design and architecture, including functionality, scaling, performance, extensibility, backward compatibility, platform compatibility, future-proofing, the list goes on and on. However, for a system to continue to be workable (maintainable, readable, extensible, correctable) there are primarily these four large concerns.

Software developers have pondered the question of "design rot" as long as there has been software, and have realized that the internal structure of a software system is vitally important to its continued success, just as external factors are critical to user acceptance.

Object-oriented design has provided tools for managing continued workability, but many developers today have not received a well-grounded education in software structure. They are instead pushed to make software that lacks internal structure, but works and is appealing in concept or user interface.

We are presenting a series of articles via the Pragmatic Bookshelf magazine, which we hope will fill in the gaps:

• Cohesion
• Coupling
• Abstraction
• Volatility

Promo Video Contest

Tim and I aren't videographers (although I do like his video, see the previous post in this blog). Nor are we in real, day-to-day teams right now (I'm doing on-customer-site consulting, tough to get permissions and such). So we're looking for someone to provide us with a cool video that shows your team's use of Agile in a Flash, and helps promote the book.

We're offering as a prize a ten-pack of cards ($110 at PragProg) for the video we choose as the best. In return, you'd grant us rights and permissions to use the video and whoevers' likenesses for promotional use.

Please email me (jeff at langrsoft.com) if you have any further questions about the contest.

Contest deadline: February 28, 2011

Legal stuff: This is all arbitrary, and Tim and I reserve all rights, including the right to not choose a video if none suits our promotional needs.

The Deal

Agile In A Flash is not a replacement for coaching, training, consulting, and those wonderful books that my colleagues have written.  Agile in a Flash is a great way to get started, and a great tool for coaches, trainers, and consultants to use in teaching Agile software development to their clients and colleagues.

This is our first released video about the cards. Stay tuned.

Released.

It's here! After a few years of writing, a lot of editing, a bit of promotion, and a whole lot of work, Pragmatic Programmers has released Agile In A Flash.

To our knowledge there is not another product like this one anywhere in the world, on any topic. We've worked hard to make something useful and unique for our Agile community. We have spent a lot of time on format and form factor, phrasing, clarifying points when possible, and weeding out the cards that seemed less useful. As a result of our extreme culling and revisits, you will find powerful advice in a surprisingly small package.

Pragmatic Programmers helped us to make it affordable for teams and companies alike, and individual copies are not out of "impulse purchase" range.  This was a departure from their normal publishing activities, but they believed in it and did a lot of legwork to make it possible.  They've been supportive and amazing, and I hope you will reward them with your custom.

Thank you for your comments, reviews, tweets and retweets.  Today the project is entirely "real" and we appreciate all our readers have done (and may continue to do) to make this crazy little idea work.

New PragProg article: Code Coupling

Our latest in our series of "big ideas in software" is now available and appearing in the PragPub January 2011 issue. This is the second article out of four, each covering one of cohesion, coupling, abstraction, and volatility. In this article on coupling, we talk about the impacts of too many dependencies in your software, and what you can do to prevent it.

In addition to the HTML version, you also find PDF, epub, and mobi versions of the article here.

Agile in a Flash is slated for publication on January 20! You can advance-order now from Amazon; you'll also soon be able to order in bulk, at a discount, from PragProg directly (and this is the kind of thing for which you'll want a separate copy for everyone on your team).

Meanwhile, Tim and I are banging out the next article, on abstraction, in the series. If you have any advance thoughts on what you'd like to see covered, drop a comment here or send us a line.

Thanks for reading!

On its way!

The current theory is that the decks will be available (and quite affordable) in mid-to-late January, probably pushing toward the "late" bit. I'm incredibly excited about it, and hope you will be too!

Shu Ha Ri

The latest PragPub issue is out with our latest Agile in a Flash-related article, Sh Ha Ri: Learn, Detach, Transcend: Steps to Agile Mastery. Or go to the PragPub magazine page and choose a different format (PDF, epub, mobi, and HTML are available).

This article expands on some of the thoughts we presented in our original Agile in a Flash blog post on shu ha ri (complete with card facsimile). Shu ha ri is one of the cards we present in the soon-to-be-published PragProg deck.

Under Test

Apologies to AIAF readers. The article sent in RSS was intended to appear at AgileOtter blog, not here.

This is the problem with having multiple Blogger accounts starting with A, and writing at night when you are less wary about checking site names when writing. Apologies to readers and to my coauthor for the slip-up.

Agile In A Flash - Whew!!

We are off to the copy editor, and that means your Agile In A Flash cards are coming soon. 


See the official Pragmatic Bookshelf page!

See the O'Reilly catalog entry!

See the Amazon catalog entry!

See the ongoing series of articles in PragProg Magazine!

See the happy authors!

Thanks to everyone for the support and reviews and ideas and permissions.  It's fun to see a dream come true!

Now it's time to go replace my exclamation mark key. ;-)

New PragProg article--What Agile is Not

Latest update: The Agile in a Flash project is nearing final draft, close to being sent to production! Once that happens (perhaps end of next week), it's 6-8 weeks away from shipping to you.

Meanwhile, our latest PragPub article (available in multiple formats--see the PragPub magazine index--is out. It's called "What Agile is Not" and talks about some of our experiences with agile. Looking at the article, though, I wonder about the lead-off sentence for our conclusion paragraph:

"The advice from Kent Beck and Ron Jeffries for successful adoption of Agile Software Development has always been to start with the values. "

But is that true? I believe there have been some recent statements to the contrary on one of the mailing lists. My apologies to Ron/Kent--that's how I've always looked at things, so perhaps I'd projected my misinterpretation on their teachings. Feedback please?