Gojko Adzic

Pragmatic Ajax: A Web 2.0 Primer, by Justin Gehtland, Bel Galbraith and Dion Almaer is a great introduction into the world of Web 2.0. In about 300 pages, this book covers most of the topics required to get started with Ajax-based development, from principles to debugging and integration with major server platforms. Continue Reading »

A few years ago, I noticed a need for more direction in the opening scenes of my projects. I am not really a fan of big, formal methods, so I was looking for something light-weight which would help, but not get in the way. Focusing on goals turned out to be a very effective approach to setting the stage for software development. Continue Reading »

A surprisingly pragmatic book on managing software projects, The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun contains practical suggestions and clear-headed explanations without getting involved into methodologies or buzzword-compliant processes.
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Straight from the cover, it’s clear that this is not a usual “software book”. The Best Software Writing I is a collection of weblog posts from 2004, hand picked by Joel Spolsky. This book is a true mirror of the blogging community, displaying all the variety of Web - articles range from three picture comics to 15 page essays, comming straight from the minds of programming celebrities like Ken Arnold, Bruce Eckel and Ron Jeffries, but also people of whom you probably never heard and some who even remained anonymous. With such mix-and-match combination this book covers typical software topics like coding style, usability and overtime, but also lessons learned from project failures, appraisals of great hackers, transaction management strategies in coffee shops and software autism. Continue Reading »

In Sources of Power, Gary Klein describes his research of variations in understanding orders among commanders and tank platoon leaders, reaching conclusions that giving answers to ‘what‘ and ‘how‘ does not prepare individual teams for reacting to unforeseen problems. As I was reading this, it struck me that this mismatch is also present in software development. Most of the time we get or give answers to ‘how‘ and ‘what‘, and then spend enormous effort on coordination when problems arise, as people start pulling in different directions. Continue Reading »