Pragmatic Reading

I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about how we go about delivering complex software, and the typical problems which come up. I think it’s generally healthy to be humble about the work that you do and occassionally step back and look at what could be done better.

I’ve been reading some of the books published by The Pragmatic Programmers and have been happily impressed with how well they convey some of the core ideas about running the most productive development infrastructure.

I’ve just finished reading their book on project automation, and there was a particular quote which appealed to me – the cobblers son is always the last to get a pair of shoes.

We’re often employed to analyse what people do and implement automation to make their jobs more efficient, but often never get around to applying the same process to our own work.

One of the ideas that made me bounce around with excitement, was implementing automation to make project delivery simple and efficient, but hooking up various different feedback mechanisms to provide information on what is happening. The post recently about the wireless rabbit is (to me) completely serious – providing an enjoyable way to actively monitor complex automation is a very important aspect of success.