Software Development Books

by Alan Cooper

Comments: A lot of people talk about user-centered design. Then they go on to build systems that focus too narrowly on a user's tasks rather than actually examining a user's goals. This distinction was quite an eye-opener for me and I am guessing it would be for a lot of other developers, designers, and project managers.

by Steve McConnell

Comments: I have seen a few companies spend months discussing a set of company-wide coding standards. If it were up to me I would have everyone read this book and then sit down for a day or two and decide on which chapters to use and which chapters to ignore. That subset of chapters would then become the company's coding standards.

by Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville

Comments: An excellent look at how information should be organized and disseminated. Many of the topics are common to most websites regardless of their size, complexity, or target audience. Of particular interest to me were the chapters on navigational systems and labeling.

by the Software Engineering Laboratory of NASA

Comments: NASA builds some of the most mission-critical software applications in the world. Their software development efforts are extraordinary. Yet while managing to achieve productivity levels equal to or better than the average software development shop, they can simultaneously improve quality by 10 to 20 times. While reading this handbook I was continually amazed at the amount of quantitative data that NASA's Software Engineering Lab has gathered to help with estimating project time and cost, measuring system complexity, and determining optimum team size. NASA has even developed a formula (specific to their environment) to express the number of pages of documentation that will likely have to be written per line of code.

by Steve McConnell

Comments: While McConnell's books Code Complete (above) and Software Project Survival Guide (below) are targeted at developers and project managers respectively, this is the book for lead developers. This book is a mix of both technical and managerial practices which I found very helpful in my many positions as Lead Web Developer.

by Steve McConnell

Comments: Chapter 2 provides a quick test for evaluating the chances that a software development project will succeed. This test provides a quantitative way to measure the improvement in one's project management skills since, by following the guidelines in this book, each successive project should score higher over time. This test alone makes the book worth purchasing.

by Frederick P. Brooks, Anniversary Edition

Comments: Ever wonder where the idea that adding more people to a late project makes the project run even later? Brooks explains the logic behind this idea. Another interesting essay is “No Silver Bullet” in which Brooks theorizes that in the next 10 years, from the time the essay was written, there would not be any new technologies or processes that would significantly improve the art of software development. This anniversary edition is an excellent revival of several influential essays on software engineering.

by Jennifer Flemming

Comments: The first 100 pages of this book are fairly weak because the topics discussed are covered in more detail in other books. However, the second half of the book delves in to specific design ideas for different types (shopping, entertainment, information, learning, etc.) of sites. Furthermore, the discussions include a practical examination of a handful of live sites of each type.