Agile Technical Practices Distilled

Delve deep into the various technical practices, principles, and values of Agile.

Key Features

• Discover the essence of Agile software development and the key principles of software design
• Explore the fundamental practices of Agile working, including test-driven development (TDD), refactoring, pair programming, and continuous integration
• Learn and apply the four elements of simple design

Book Description

The number of popular technical practices has grown exponentially in the last few years. Learning the common fundamental software development practices can help you become a better programmer. This book uses the term Agile as a wide umbrella and covers Agile principles and practices, as well as most methodologies associated with it.

You'll begin by discovering how driver-navigator, chess clock, and other techniques used in the pair programming approach introduce discipline while writing code. You'll then learn to safely change the design of your code using refactoring. While learning these techniques, you'll also explore various best practices to write efficient tests. The concluding chapters of the book delve deep into the SOLID principles - the five design principles that you can use to make your software more understandable, flexible and maintainable.

By the end of the book, you will have discovered new ideas for improving your software design skills, the relationship within your team, and the way your business works.

What you will learn

• Learn the red, green, refactor cycle of classic TDD and practice the best habits such as the rule of 3, triangulation, object calisthenics, and more
• Refactor using parallel change and improve legacy code with characterization tests, approval tests, and Golden Master
• Use code smells as feedback to improve your design
• Learn the double cycle of ATDD and the outside-in mindset using mocks and stubs correctly in your tests
• Understand how Coupling, Cohesion, Connascence, SOLID principles, and code smells are all related
• Improve the understanding of your business domain using BDD and other principles for "doing the right thing, not only the thing right"

Who this book is for

This book is designed for software developers looking to improve their technical practices. Software coaches may also find it helpful as a teaching reference manual. This is not a beginner's book on how to program. You must be comfortable with at least one programming language and must be able to write unit tests using any unit testing framework.