View Larger Image	Mike Gunderloy Sybex, Paperback, Published April 2004, 297 pages, ISBN 078214327X
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Read an online sample chapter: Chapter 5: Preventing Bugs with Unit Testing       Excerpt provided courtesy of Sybex Inc.

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• Programming : Software Development

• Sybex

But no one can confuse writing good code with developing good software. The difference—in terms of challenges, skills, and compensation—is immense.

Coder to Developer helps you excel at the many non-coding tasks entailed, from start to finish, in just about any successful development project. What's more, it equips you with the mindset and self-assurance required to pull it all together, so that you see every piece of your work as part of a coherent process. Inside, you'll find plenty of technical guidance on such topics as:

• Choosing and using a source code control system
  
• Code generation tools—when and why
  
• Preventing bugs with unit testing
  
• Tracking, fixing, and learning from bugs
  
• Application activity logging
  
• Streamlining and systematizing the build process
  
• Traditional installations and alternative approaches

To pull all of this together, the author has provided the source code for Download Tracker, a tool for organizing your collection of downloaded code, that's used for examples throughout this book. The code is provided in various states of completion, reflecting every stage of development, so that you can dig deep into the actual process of building software. But you’ll also develop “softer” skills, in areas such as team management, open source collaboration, user and developer documentation, and intellectual property protection. If you want to become someone who can deliver not just good code but also a good product, this book is the place to start. If you must build successful software projects, it’s essential reading.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction

Chapter 1: Planning Your Project
Chapter 2: Organizing Your Project
Chapter 3: Using Source Code Control Effectively
Chapter 4: Coding Defensively
Chapter 5: Preventing Bugs with Unit Testing
Chapter 6: Pumping Up the IDE
Chapter 7: Digging Into Source Code
Chapter 8: Generating Code
Chapter 9: Tracking and Squashing Bugs
Chapter 10: Logging Application Activity
Chapter 11: Working with Small Teams
Chapter 12: Creating Documentation
Chapter 13: Mastering the Build Process
Chapter 14: Protecting Your Intellectual Property
Chapter 15: Delivering the Application

Index

About the Author

Mike Gunderloy is an independent developer and author who lives in eastern Washington state. He has worked in development organizations of all sizes, from small shops to multinational corporations. Mike has been developing software for over a quarter century, during which time he has gained expertise across a wide variety of Microsoft technologies. His previous books include Mastering Visual C#.NET and ADO and ADO.NET Programming.

Dec 6, 2004     john armitage from oregon
Read this book
Mike is a great writer. I enjoy his books and his blog online. Because I try to keep myself up to date on all the latest design methodologies, best practices, and productivity tools related to Visual Studio and .NET in general I wondered how much I would actually get out of this book. Let's just say I still got a lot. I even got a few new outlooks on some of the things that I already knew and did and other reasons why they should be done. If you are just starting your "programming career" this book is one that you NEED to read. If you have been coding for a while, but your experience has mostly been getting specs from someone and just writing code, you NEED to read this book. If you have been developing for a long while, been involved in setting up frameworks, unit testing and continuous integration I bet that you would still pull a few useful nuggets out of this book. I know I did.

Aug 22, 2004     A review from Wisconsin
Best practices for doing Microsoft .NET development.
The most important thing to know up front is that this book is very specific to doing development with Microsoft .NET technologies. It is not applicable to Java or any other development technology. This book is not about how to write code (although the author does develop an application as an example of good coding practices) but rather covers a set of best practices and tools for developing software better. This book does not go into much detail on each topic but rather just introduces concepts and tools and then gives references to places to find more information. This book is going to be most useful for those that are new to Microsoft .NET development or those have been doing it for a while but need to learn how to do it better. If you are a professional .NET developer who keeps up with software development best practices then you probably know most of what is in this book although you might find some of the authors links to different software tools useful. I think the book is very reasonably prices at $30 and when discounted becomes a bargain. In summary, rookies would greatly benefit from reading this book cover to cover while professionals might find the information on different software tools useful.

May 4, 2004     Eric Brunsen from USA
Required reading for software developers
I purchased this book prior to it being available, based on articles and newsletters that I had read by the author. I eagerly awaited its release and delivery to my doorstep. Upon receiving the book, my initial reaction was one of skepticism and worry. I have MANY other computer books that don't claim to cover nearly as much ground, and yet, are much longer. Knowing the level of Mike's work (from articles and newsletters), I kept an open mind and started reading. After 3 days of reading and digesting the information in the book, I must say that it is one of the best computer books I have ever read (and one of the very few that I have read cover-to-cover, and not only cover-to-cover, but cover-to-cover to the exclusion of all else). After reading the first couple of chapters, I decided to put aside the software application that I was working on, and read the entire book. I will now go back to the start of my application and apply the lessons from the book to the project. I don't feel that I have "lost" the time working on the software project, because I think that what I learned in the book will more than pay for itself in saved time during development.

This book is not a "how-to" book, but rather a "what-to" book. That is, there are very few "step by step" examples for a given task (such as unit testing), but rather, an entire collection of tasks that any coder/developer should not only know, but practice regularly. However, the entire book itself can be viewed as a step-by-step guide to software development from start to finish.

While much of the book seems to be "common sense" as you read through it, I found at least 1 thing that I didn't know or hadn't considered in every chapter. In many respects, not only can this book be used to get a handle on what needs to be done, but it can also be used as a task list for software development projects.

This book, for me, will be used time and again as a "blueprint" for creating software. The structure and organization of the book make it an excellent "task list" for creating good software from start to finish. Using the book, a person can start in the "Planning" phase of the application and move step-by-step through to the "Delivery" phase.

Even though the focus is on the single developer or small development team, the majority of the lessons can be applied in any project, however large. For example, the majority of the book could be applied to the development of a single object in a large scale project.

I am sure there will be readers who bought this book expecting it to tell them how to do everything in a 123 manner, that they would ever need to do in order to be a successful software developer, that will give this book a bad rating. Those people, however, should seriously consider how large that book would be. For every chapter in the book there are many books that are devoted specifically to that very topic. I think that this is actually the strength of this book, it doesn't try to tell you how to do every task (such as unit testing), but rather informs you about what tasks you need to do, why you need to do them, some of the tools that can be used for the task, and where to find resources related to the task. Mike also gives a brief (but informative) review of several of the tools that pertain to a particular task.

Even if the book itself was not worth the money (which it definitely is), the list of tools and links to resources is an incredible time saver.

This book should be REQUIRED READING in every CIS/CS/IT/IS university/college program. I will be asking my manager to purchase a copy for each of the developers in our team.

I would suggest that anyone who is developing software or writing code, order this book, and then take the time to read it thoroughly as soon as you get it, and then go back to your current project. You will NOT be disappointed.

Eric

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