Reading Review

The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge V4 is due to land in 2023. Here’s some quick thoughts on an article summarizing the V4 updates and their impact on education.

A former FBI hostage negotiator discusses how to apply FBI negotiation techniques to business and everyday life. I was surprised that the approach is mostly about listening really well and helping the other side feel heard.

Scaling Architecture Conversationally clearly and concisely explains how and why architecture is more of a facilitated process than a top-down decision process.

Checklist Manifesto paints an facinating journey of a surgeon who discovered checklists. The book explores checklists across industries and applications, but one lesson pervades them all: use checklists to distribute power.

I read that stuckness is not a bad thing. It is avoiding our stuckness that is the problem. I think living with stuckness is part of why duck docs are so good.

Code That Fits in Your Head tackles a problem dear to my heart. Mark Seemann realized good software engineering practices are out there, but it’s hard to connect the dots between scattered sources.

Following software to it’s orgins with Alan Turing reveals some interesting trends in how ideas cycle.

Small teaching is an engaging and practical condensation of learning research into an accessible read. The book is oriented toward teachers, but is meaningful for anyone who wants to learn more effectively or understand how to share ideas.

The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) levels up our industry. It collects evidence-based standard practices that every developer is expected to know. This post will establish some background for SWEBOK, cover my high-level takeaways.

Steve McConnell is best known for Code Complete. Professional Software Development is a much lighter packaging of McConnell’s core philosophy. It establishes up a well-founded view on what the software industry is and could be. Here I’ll highlight some of my key takeaways from the book.