Customer Reviews

Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

First, this book is well written and presents information in a constructive manner. It is well thought out, and is not just another C#/OOP/XP book.

Now for the bad news. One unnecessary oversight is the use of casts and "object" in some examples. Any author writing any C# book since 2005 must know that these idioms should no longer be encouraged. It is unacceptable for a book published in February 2007 to possess this flaw.

Generics, used in moderation, result in cleaner code that is also type-safe, and usually performs better due to the absence of boxing/unboxing. The authors should consider posting alternative examples that favor Generic types and collections on their errata web page. If you purchase this book, you would be well-advised to review the examples with a bias against the use of casts and the word "object".

To be entirely frank, I don't see how other reviewers can justify a five star rating.

This book is amazingly great from start to finish. All the basics of good agile development are covered clearly and sensibly in the first section: what agile is, how to go about it, why testing and planning are so critical, and where refactoring fits in all of this. Design and general patters are hit in the second section, again in a clear, concise, and sensible fashion -- and with common sense thrown in.

The final two sections cover a real-world case study implementation of a payroll system. Here the rubber meets the asphalt: walking through use cases, building transactions based on smartly-chosen patterns, discussion of what patterns make sense where and why, implementation, packaging, and evolution.

I found myself shaking my head in wonder as I read this book and stumbled across one nugget of gold after another. Some bits of goodness pop out in the middle of nowhere simply because the authors are so well-versed in their domain that they're letting fly wisdom even when discussing other topics. An example of this is in the XP pairing session episode where some discussion of increment operator side effects is tossed in the middle of another discussion stream. You read that section once and pass over it, only to do a head check, bounce back and re-read it while nodding your head and saying "Yeah, that's absolutely right and I might not have caught that otherwise."

Another bit of greatness is the chapter on UML. The authors are emphatic about keeping UML tightly in check and using it only in specific cases where it makes clear sense. Mountains of UML diagrams are not the answer; the authors show where a few concise diagrams make perfect sense.

More goodness can be found throughout the book in the gems relating to any number of design issues such as a small example of a problem the authors put forth to students of their various design/patterns courses: build a coffee maker. The authors go through the most common result they see and show the specific problem areas of that solution -- and then show a solution that is amazing in its simplicity, elegance, and maintainability.

This book is a critical read for folks at any level of experience. I'm going to do my best to make sure it gets on the required reading list for developers at my company.

This book really covers two topics: Agile management methods and development practices used by agile team.

Section I, the description of the Agile methology is brief. This is obviously the intent of the author and agile is meant to be documenation-light. This section only consists of 100 pages. It's a quick read giving you everything you need to know to implement the Agile methodology in your team.

Section II, is titled "Agile Design". These chapters are high-level design principles with low-level examples and a thorough treatment of UML. This should have been split into two sections. This first, would be most useful for a beginner/intermediate developer to take their skills to the next level. The second part, is required reading/knowledge for any developer who needs to work with a team or who needs to plan a complex application.

Section III is presented as a case study. Under the guise of a desiging a payroll system, the authors present the most popular design patterns. This section depends on the previous sections and is a great example of the thought process of agile developers.

The book is well written and easy to read for intermediate to advanced developers. Beginning developers would stuggle with some sections. However, all levels would beneift from reading this book.

Robert Martin is one of the smartest people I've ever talked with, and he is one of the best technical writers I've ever read.

This book is *the* most comprehensive and most valuable introduction and guide to Agile programming, with a full discussion of Agile principles, the "fourteen practices of eXtreme programming," full discussion of "spiking, splitting, velocity, iteration, test-driven development, refactoring, pair programming, five types of UML diagrams," and how to use all of this in real world .NET development.

There is no doubt in my mind that this book will make you a better programmer, will challenge you, will teach you, will take you beyond what you already know, and will entertain you along the way. Robert is as good as it gets.

This book is required reading. Do not hesitate.

This book pretty much stinks. There is nothing C# about it. It doesn't leverage any of the advanced features, the examples are weak.

Reviewers and some programmers who are so turned on by words like "agile, patterns, etc.." will find though the title of the book contains the buzz words, the content of it is a farce.

I read this book and I was like "this is the same Robert Martin rehashed junk just translated into C#" [Not even a decent translation]. You'll find them also telling Microsoft developers how they shouldn't name interfaces with a capital I.

On the contrary, I am glad they did, I like to peruse my object browser and easily see the differences, it helps me a lot. Their pompous attitude is displayed in the preface trying to diss C# developers.

Don't get me wrong, I respect Java developers like Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, etc.. But they have intelligent things to say in their books and are not condescending.

This book has nothing of real importance, and the real thrust of agile practices and also of design patterns can be found in much better books by better authors and who know and leverage the power of C#. Wouldn't you rather learn these things from real professional .NET developers like Francesco Balena, Trey Nash, Juval Lowy?

These authors simply don't know C#, which is evident by the examples they present and the way they present it.

I know I sound harsh [and will take a lot of flack I'm sure by some newbie or even perhaps a few skilled] but this book does not deserve the praise it has been getting, plain and simple. It's not quite as bad as C# Design Patterns by James Cooper [which is pathetic, to say the least], but it is not good enough to buy from the lowest seller from Amazon.

My top recommended books:
1. "Accelerated C#" by Trey Nash
2. "Programming .NET Components" by Juval Lowy
3. "Test Driven Development in Microsoft .NET"
4. "Head First Design Patterns" [in Java but good]
5. "CLR Via C#" by Jeffrey Richter
6. "Code Complete" [Much better on practices then this book]
7. "Pro C# 2008 and the .NET 3.5 Platform" [Excellent]
8. "Framework Design Guidelines"
9. "WCF" by Juvy Lowy [Advanced stuff, but excellent]
10. "Pro LINQ Language Integrated Query in C# 2008"

This book in NOT about learning how to program using C# as your language of choice. But, if you want a book on how to design and develop real world software then this is THE book on the subject. This is an updated version of a previous book (that won numerous awards) that has EXAMPLES written in C#. What I like the most about the book is that the authors take a firm stand on key issues and identify PRINCIPLES of design and development.

It's true that some of the old books by the Martins have been difficult to read because they covered a subject in agonizing detail and then go on and on to prove why their way of thinking is correct. In this book they drop the "proofing" (thank you) get to the point and show us the best way to build software.

The payroll examples are in C# and drive home the authors PRINCIPLES of design and development quite well.

I've been developing software for 30 years (10 years in C# and Java) and this book should be a part of every software developers library (regardless of the language being used).

This book is not a five. Full of bad code that does not use the full strength of C#. The concepts and ideas are excellent. The author in person is witty and very charismatic. It could have been a better book if he would have correctly converted it to C#. The examples are okay, but could have been better. Examples with squares and rectangles just don't do it for me. I will say the book did change my coding style. This realy is more theory, something to think about. I fear people will use the book and start implementing patterns for symptons they do not even have!

Another great "Uncle Bob" book. Makes a great case for why adherence to good patterns are even more important in an agile environment. I really liked the point that relational DB's are sometimes a political decision, and putting off the decision to code to them makes for much more elegant design.

I wasn't horribly fond of his MVP example (public properties on presenter instead of having them on the view). I'm just not ready (yet) to embrace the "no hungarian notation for interfaces" idea- although I do see the point.

Agile practices and design patterns written in a clear, concise way. Granted there are a handful of mistakes throughout the book, and the occasional awkward reference to a pattern that won't be covered for another 5 chapters, but they're easy to spot.

The information is presented just right - a little background info, succinct descriptions, and simplified code examples. Outstanding.

This book is unique in that it covers software principles, metrics, patterns, packaging, design smells, UML, and agile programming practices all in one book.

It uses great real world examples, and has a ton of code with them. They are all explained very thoroughly.

What I like the most is he includes the mistakes usually made in real world environments and then works his way back onto the right path.

I read the Java version from cover to cover, although I do no Java. The contents are just to important to live without. Now that it is out in C# I am re-reading it from cover to cover.

If you develop using an OO language, you must read this book.