Customer Reviews

Practical Development Environments

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

 

 

This is an important work that should be required reading for the following individuals:

1. Software Engineering students
2. Build/Release engineers
3. All new software engineers starting off

When I started my professional software career, I wish that I had a book like this that I could have read before I ever wrote a line of code. When an engineer is starting off, they are fresh out of school with a whole bunch of theory floating in their head and a myriad of projects they have just worked on, but this does not deal with how software is actually MADE in the real world. No matter how well you understand the difference between a reference and a pointer, in order to be a successful software engineer you still need to know how software actually gets built by a team of people and that's what makes 'Practical Development Environments' by Matthew Doar so great and so USEFUL.

This book isn't about how to code, rather how code gets out the door. Sure you might be able to create some classes, methods, and know how to interact with them, but have you ever really thought about how code is managed? How it gets tested? How many engineers work on the same piece of code without stumbling on each others toes?

The author does just that in this book, as he examines the intricacies of what source control is and some of the most popular SCM solutions are out there. The author discusses how important testing is and the tools that can be used to track, modify, and fix bugs quickly and efficiently. Mr. Doar talks about the maintenance cycle of how code is hotfixed after releases are made, and the scripts and documentation that goes along with said releases and upgrades.

Writing code is not just about opening up a C++ project and making a few classes and doing some unit testing. Writing good code is a PROCESS in itself, and it's important that all engineers present and future understand what goes into getting a product out the door. I honestly wish that I had something like this back when I was in school, it would have prepared me better for everything that I learned later and possibly would have helped avoid some of the potholes that I encountered along the way.

This is an important work and I found it very useful, if for nothing else than stressing how many aspects there are to getting software out beyond writing it and selling it.

***** HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Software development is big business, so it's always surprising just how awful software development tools can be.

After fourteen years of writing software under four different bug tracking systems and three different Source Control Management systems, about the only conclusion I've reached is that they're all bad in their own unique way.

The author of this book at least has the grace to admit this. He then, however, spends a lot of time contrasting and comparing various tools, and coming up with cheery new ways to say "They're both crap, but this one sucks less" without actually coming out and saying that.

Of course, about the only thing worse than mediocre SCM and bug tracking is none at all. So, assuming that you're not in a position to write your own development environment from scratch, this is a useful guide to the best of what's out there.

And, I have to admit, I'm keeping it within easy reach for ammunition next time someone tries to "fix" my development environment by switching tools underneath me. Whether I use it as a resource for reasoned debate or simply as a projectile weapon remains to be seen. Hint: I'm hoping for a hardback version.

Four stars.

Disclaimer: I have crossed paths professionally with the author of this book.

It's much more common these days to see development environments that use standard tools for things like the build process, source management, testing, and so forth. But if you're just getting introduced to these areas of automation and control, how do you get a broad understanding of the issues and offerings without buying a ton of books that are far too detailed for what you need? Practical Development Environments by Matthew B. Doar addresses this need quite well...

Contents: Introduction; Project Basics; Project Concepts; Software Configuration Management; Building Software; Testing Software; Tracking Bugs; Documentation Environments; Releasing Products; Maintenance; Project Communication; Politics and People; How Tools Scale; Resources; Index

I like the way things are laid out here. Take the Tracking Bugs chapter for example... It starts out with a list of requirements that a tool needs to be able to do well in order to be useful in tracking bugs. Things like ease of data entry, easy review of bugs, tracing the history of a bug, generate reports, and so forth. Once the requirements are out there, then he examines some of the common tools available along with their pros and cons. There's the ever-present spreadsheet (not bad for something small and simple), Bugzilla, GNATS, FogBugz, JIRA, and TestTrack. Each of those products are covered in a page or two so that you can understand the history, strengths, current direction, and why you may or may not want to choose this particular tool. There's also no dogma here on whether something needs to be free/open source or not. Both commercial and open source packages are covered. This is followed by more general bug tracking system discussion, and then it all ends with a checklist of questions you should feel comfortable answering about your particular choice in this area. By the time you're done with a chapter on a particular subject, you should have a decent foundation on the concepts you need to know to make an informed choice.

It's not a book you'd mistake as a reference manual on any one (or more) tools, but that's not what it sets out to be. This is the book you'd want if you don't know what you don't know. If you keep that in mind, it delivers on its purpose.

Are you having a problem in choosing and using different tools to provide a satisfying software development environment? If you are, then this book is for you! Author Matthew B Doar, has done an outstanding job of writing a practical guide that is a collection of advice about real development environments.

Doar, begins by describing the different activities involved in producing a piece of software; open and closed software development; and some classic situations that arise when developing software products. Then, the author describes the different areas of software development. He continues by discussing the concepts such as integration and automation that are used throughout a development environment. Then, the author discusses how to use SCM tools to keep track of different versions of files. Then, he discusses tools for building software from source files. Next, the author discusses testing software. He also describes different bug tracking tools, what to look for in them, and what to avoid. Then, the author continues by describing some of the more common documentation tools and how they are used. Next, he discusses the process of releasing software. The author also discusses the problems of maintaining your environment, and how development environments can help with the maintenance of older software products. Then, he discusses ways to improve communication within your project. Finally, the author offers a standalone collection of observations about what a toolsmith does for a development environment, and some other decidedly nontechnical aspects of software developments environments.

The tools described in this most excellent book are mostly intended for small to medium-sized projects of up to around 200 developers. More importantly, this book recognizes that some progress in your software development environment is better than none.

The problem with books that talk about specific software is that they become dated rather quickly. This five year old book shows its age. It has lost significant relevance but still contains snippets of wisdom.

2 stars because it is dated, probably would have been 4 stars in 2005. my suggestion is not to buy this, I did and I am disappointed.

Book is a bit out of date, doesn't discuss the newest technologies, but if you need some good guidance on the how and why of development environments, this is a good choice.

I have liked this book, although has some strengths and some weaknesses.

The strong points are that it is very practical indeed, it talks about the typical points to consider while deploying automated activities such as building, configuration management, testing, etc. Some 4-5 popular tools are reviewed for each discipline and explained. To sum up, it gives you a quick summary on tooling and process trends in the industry.

The two main weak points are that the book is clearly outdated, since tools have evolved quite a lot since 2005. This is clearly a challenge for any book talking about tools. The other is point is that the book is a too basic if you have worked developing in a minimally good team since many of the tools or practices may have been already deployed.

Overally, the book is worth reading if you are not very experienced. Else, you may not get a good value from it.

Alex Ballarin @ Cynertia Consulting. Barcelona. Spain.

When I bought this book I thought it would be detailed about how to setup and manage development, test, and production environments. At the time I was consulting on Release Planning and Management for both (1) new development, aka. release management "in the large" as defined by the CMMI for program management of complex and interelated projects, and (2) release management for support, aka. release management "in the small" as defined by ITIL.

So I re-read it to compare to my ITIL books on configuration and release management and *was* disappointed that the book did not have more managerial level discussions. So at the time, 2007, I thought it was (a) not technical enough on Environments and (b) not theoretical enough on Best Practices.

BUT- now I have re-read parts of the book several times and consider it Excellent on what it covers, which is all the periperal tools that most projects need. It covers configuration management, builds, defect management, and to a point requirements management. It does not cover environment performance tuning, nor does it go into depth on how to write or tune a Build.XML ant script. But it is full of great, tool agnostic best practices on what types of tools you need to complement your IDE and compilers and libraries, some samples (altho some -not all- of the references are old), and the criteria to choose or build a tool (please dont build your own tools!).

I've read this book. I've also read the review here by "Pick Notower". I don't see any connection between the book and that review. Maybe "P.N' is actually an AI reviewing program? If so, its grammar code needs some more work.

this books is full of fluff that it reads like a giant 'feel-good' self-help propaganda, except the author is clue-less on reallife product development. I can not help suspecting that is the result of someone's talking circus trips around country (those 'technology/sales' conference) if you are a mid-level manager at some consulting firm who is pressed by the boss to sell, it will help you B.S. your clue-less customer with big buzz words during yout next sales meeting. otherwise, stay away! I give one star for the cover design only.