Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# (Hardcover)

~ Robert C. Martin (Author), Micah Martin (Author) "Many of us have lived through the nightmare of a project with no practices to guide it..." (more)
Key Phrases: agile development, agile design, programming episode, Packaging the Payroll System Listing, The Payroll Case Study, The Payroll User Interface (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

With the award-winning book Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices, Robert C. Martin helped bring Agile principles to tens of thousands of Java and C++ programmers. Now .NET programmers have a definitive guide to agile methods with this completely updated volume from Robert C. Martin and Micah Martin, Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#. This book presents a series of case studies illustrating the fundamentals of Agile development and Agile design, and moves quickly from UML models to real C# code. The introductory chapters lay out the basics of the agile movement, while the later chapters show proven techniques in action. The book includes many source code examples that are also available for download from the authors' Web site. Readers will come away from this book understanding *Agile principles, and the fourteen practices of Extreme Programming *Spiking, splitting, velocity, and planning iterations and releases *Test-driven development, test-first design, and acceptance testing *Refactoring with unit testing *Pair programming *Agile design and design smells *The five types of UML diagrams and how to use them effectively *Object-oriented package design and design patterns *How to put all of it together for a real-world project Whether you are a C# programmer or a Visual Basic or Java programmer learning C#, a software development manager, or a business analyst, Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# is the first book you should read to understand agile software and how it applies to programming in the .NET Framework.

From the Back Cover

With the award-winning book Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices, Robert C. Martin helped bring Agile principles to tens of thousands of Java and C++ programmers. Now .NET programmers have a definitive guide to agile methods with this completely updated volume from Robert C. Martin and Micah Martin, Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C#.

This book presents a series of case studies illustrating the fundamentals of Agile development and Agile design, and moves quickly from UML models to real C# code. The introductory chapters lay out the basics of the agile movement, while the later chapters show proven techniques in action. The book includes many source code examples that are also available for download from the authors’ Web site.

Readers will come away from this book understanding

• Agile principles, and the fourteen practices of Extreme Programming
• Spiking, splitting, velocity, and planning iterations and releases
• Test-driven development, test-first design, and acceptance testing
• Refactoring with unit testing
• Pair programming
• Agile design and design smells
• The five types of UML diagrams and how to use them effectively
• Object-oriented package design and design patterns
• How to put all of it together for a real-world project

Whether you are a C# programmer or a Visual Basic or Java programmer learning C#, a software development manager, or a business analyst, Agile Principles, Patterns, and Practices in C# is the first book you should read to understand agile software and how it applies to programming in the .NET Framework.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 768 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR; 1 edition (July 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131857258
• ISBN-13: 978-0131857254
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.1 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #38,371 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Development > Visual Basic > C++
  #2 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Microsoft > Development > Visual Basic > C#
  #25 in	Books > Computers & Internet > Programming > Languages & Tools > C#

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Critical work on design and development, December 12, 2006

By	James Holmes "Co-Author 'Windows Developer Po... (South Central Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well done, with one exception, April 19, 2007

By	G. Askew (Germantown, MD) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely required reading for every[...], November 21, 2006

By	Jesse Liberty "Silverlight Geek" (MA USA) - See all my reviews

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.