Guide for Technical Development

https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/guide-to-technical-development.html

by gits1225 • 11 years ago

396 174 11 years ago

google.com

keerthiko• 11 years ago

Hmm, I was a little disappointed with the list for a few reasons

- Mostly just stuff that you learn along the way if you remotely like coding and go to an engineering school

- Doesn't talk about what to NOT spend/waste too much time on in favour of the listed things

- Doesn't list getting familiar with any version control systems. Obtuse as they may be, it's a must-learn skill for a software developer before being able to contribute to production code.

robmcm• 11 years ago

I would agree with VCS, preferably distributed and centralised.

It does mention GitHub and Kiln (Mercurial)

"Work on a small piece of a large system (codebase), read and understand existing code, track down documentation, and debug things. Notes: Github is a great way to read other people’s code or contribute to a project.

Online Resources: Github, Kiln"

edpichler• 11 years ago

Sorry for disagreeing a little bit, but being familiar with a tool like a version control system is the least of the problems.

It's important, but not that much to be a item on this list.

gabipurcaru• 11 years ago

You seem to be contradicting yourself -- "just stuff that you learn along the way" vs "Doesn't list getting familiar with any version control systems". Aren't version control systems "stuff that you learn along the way" in your opinion?

IMO, any resource like the one in the OP is going to get bashed ("not the way I would learn stuff"). Might as well learn something from it.

exelius2• 11 years ago

No, you pretty much don't need to bother with version control systems unless you're writing code on a team with others. And even then, students will likely never deal with any of the complexities that arise in the real world like branch merges, continuous integration, etc.

In general, school teaches you the content without the tradecraft. You'll need both to be a "rockstar" developer, and I don't see how you could ever get the tradecraft without working in the industry.

squeaky-clean• 11 years ago

Aren't version control systems "stuff that you learn along the way" in your opinion?

I don't think so. The reasons for using version control when programming solo aren't obvious. Especially with the intimidating learning curve something like git has for newcomers. Most CS students I've tutored would either dropbox their code, or store it by emailing it to themselves.

And then there's the difference between using version control just for yourself, or a small group project, vs using version control on a large application, such as OSS with hundreds of contributors. Workflows, best practices, etc.

I had never used any version control until my first internship. I didn't really put any effort into a good git workflow until I was at a company that actually cared about establishing one.

rifung• 11 years ago

I dont think version control is necessarily something you learn along the way if you are just learning on your own. It is a good idea for any nontrivial project to have, but I also dont feel like its such a necessity someone who is learning would go out of their way to use it. I'm not even sure everyone would necessarily be exposed to it and know it exists when just learning, unless they decided to contribute to OSS which seems pretty far down.

allworknoplay2• 11 years ago

I don't agree at all. First, although it doesn't state it, it feels to me (and was confirmed by a googler in a separate thread) like this is meant for university students, for whom there is no "along the way" -- just academic CS courses.

Second, they did bring up version control: "Work on a small piece of a large system (codebase), read and understand existing code, track down documentation, and debug things. Notes: Github is a great way to read other people’s code or contribute to a project. Online Resources: Github, Kiln"

sanxiyn2• 11 years ago

I second the recommendation of Udacity's Software Testing course and Software Debugging course. Software Testing is taught by the author of csmith, and Software Debugging is taught by the author of delta.

I feel that most CS curriculums could be improved by teaching more of testing and debugging. Do you know why it is not done?

S4M• 11 years ago

I feel that most CS curriculums could be improved by teaching more of testing and debugging. Do you know why it is not done?

I always thought this kind of skills was learned best through experience, by writing buggy code first, then fixing the bugs, then realizing that some testing could have helped to find the bug much earlier on...

buttproblem• 11 years ago

testing seems to be somewhat of a niche field. Using manual unit testing and random testing gets good results and seems to be the standard. But, you certainly could not devote an entire semester course on them.

Beyond that, more advanced program analysis techniques, such as model checking and abstract interpretation, use some tricky math and don't seem to be widely used outside of some niche fields (critical software).

Testing in VLSI design seems much more commonplace (people usually attribute this to the Intel bug). I don't know how much hardware design is done in a typical CS degree.

sukilot12• 11 years ago

Because it is a practical skill and hifalutin schools prefer theory and arcana.

djent• 11 years ago

Software Testing is taught at the college I attend.

ramisama• 11 years ago

I wonder why Go is not in the list of recommended languages

longlivegnu• 11 years ago

Maybe a lack of resources out there or Google thinks if you learn a more generic language you will mold easier

ctvo• 11 years ago

Maybe they're a large company and Go is a system's language used by a subset of the company. And maybe it's not important to learn for general technical development with no specific problem to solve.

sukilot12• 11 years ago

Go is only recently popular, so very few past successful candidates had Go experience, so recruiters wouldn't notice it.

paxtonab• 11 years ago

It's nice to see a curriculum that hand picks courses from a few different MOOCs and other relevant resources - that has definitely been a weak point of MOOCs as most of them don't have enough depth/breadth on their own for you to learn all of these things.

I also think this is a great point:

"Work on project outside of the classroom. Notes: Create and maintain a website, build your own server, or build a robot."

escherize• 11 years ago

I realize it's not a guide for the exact same thing, but How To Become A Hacker[1] has many things to say about leveling up.

The 'hacker attitude' is especially well summed up, imo.

[1] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

brlewis3• 11 years ago

I wonder who at Google wrote this. HTML is listed as a programming language, and JavaScript is written as two words.

fecak5• 11 years ago

I was thinking the same thing. This is sloppy writing. It reads as though it was written by someone unfamiliar with the content, and possibly translated from another language. Some of the grammar is a bit off from what you'd expect from an official release of some kind from Google.

The capitalization of the word "university", and missing the capital H in GitHub. The "Artificial Intelligence" bullet has a formatting error. Missing articles ("work on project").

Not to mention it is vague. The "Learn other programming languages" bullet lists several options, but doesn't say anything about how unrealistic it might be to try and learn all of those languages (it says "and" instead of "or")

drinchev3• 11 years ago

These examples on their own discredit the post so much that it's a shame it has "google.com" as a domain of origin.

sanxiyn2• 11 years ago

I happened to learn all of them. It's not necessary, but it's also not unrealistic.

javert3• 11 years ago

supplement your learnings
Academic Learnings

Dead give-away.

I loathe this kind of thing. To me it evokes an image of someone who only knows computer science, and is entirely ignorant of other topics (say, history and literature) that a person needs to know to be a successful human being.

Igglyboo• 11 years ago

CSS is also on the list of programming languages along with "Shell" which is probably supposed to mean bash.

simias3• 11 years ago

Bash is not the only shell out there though. Personally I'd never tell anybody to write bash: either I want a very portable script that can run basically everywhere (on un*x) without installing anything and I use POSIX sh syntax or I want a more expressive language and I use a real programming language like perl or python or whatever.

komaromy• 11 years ago

GitHub also lists "Shell" as a language.

drewg123• 11 years ago

I'm a software engineer at Google and I was involved in a university recruiting program last year. The content at the linked page is pretty close to the slide deck that I was given by the recruiters to read to the students at the event. So I imagine that any sloppyness is an artifact of the recruiters moving text around w/o a live SWE to expand on & correct the text as they read it.

therealwill• 11 years ago

I can't help but feel that the "Java Script" error was more of a subtle jab at JS not being a "real" OOP language.

sukilot12• 11 years ago

Its more that the non techie who wrote it fell for Mozilla's decades-old harebrained marketing gimmick to name JS after Java.

nilkn• 11 years ago

I've noticed this sort of thing in a lot of Google's recruitment materials. If you ever interview with them you'll likely be sent some emails with a bunch of stuff like this which includes similar typos, minor broken English, and iffy recommendations.

allworknoplay2• 11 years ago

It's highly likely that this is the result of format transitions (being a copy of a copy), while the links and substance probably haven't changed. The non-technical people who moved this from some internal document to this page just don't focus on the same details you do -- they don't know the difference between markup and programming languages

krat0sprakhar• 11 years ago

And w3schools is provided as a reference :|

sukilot12• 11 years ago

Google.com loves w3schools. Top search result for every DHTML query.

collyw• 11 years ago

Is the content of w3schools actually bad?

Its layout is reasonable, and it seems to have a fairly comprehensive coverage of the topic. Its not overwhelming like w3.org. I can find what I want to know with relative ease (unlike w3.org)

I have seen a couple of articles pointing out that their implementation details are bad, but I don't think I have ever gone on there with the intention of clicking "view source"

merrua2• 11 years ago

w3schools is fine for students just starting out. Though I'd direct them to the MSN articles (but I'm guessing Google can't)

znpy• 11 years ago

Well, consider that probably the content was developed by someone who knows what he/she is talking about, and has been later edited by content editors, mistakenly.

This is a reasonable explanation to me.

hessenwolf2• 11 years ago

The guide to python (and I am currently training up a few folks in python) seems to be a guide for complete retards to learn python. It's woeful.

roneesh• 11 years ago

I write JavaScript for a living, and I often forget if it's one word or two. It doesn't mean you don't know JS. And yes, we all know HTML isn't a programming language, but it's so essential to releasing software nowadays that it's almost a pointless distinction to separate it. One extra list item to point out that it's a markup language? That groaning sound you hear? It's every intro to programming deck having to laboriously expand by one slide for no good reason.

brudgers2• 11 years ago

That's a bit of a one true Scotsman. #\L in "HTML" stands for Language. HTML is a declarative programming language. Programmers have voted with their keyboards and it is not to early to predict HTML's landslide victory.

The reason for it's success is declarative languages are great for data-compression. All the low level gore of reaching across the internet from one remote computer to another is reduced to a pair of <a> tags and a little text.

brlewis3• 11 years ago

Calling HTML a language is OK. But it's generally agreed that the term "programming language" should refer only to Turing-complete languages.

kaoD• 11 years ago

And the HT stands for HyperText and M for Markup, neither of which is programming. If HTML was a programming language, the web wouldn't need JS to be programmed.

greedoshotlast2• 11 years ago

they listed w3schools as a reference? not sure if I can take this seriously anymore.

dean• 11 years ago

The MIT Introduction to Algorithms link takes me to a page that says: "Your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from ocw.mit.edu (for example, passwords, messages or credit cards). NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID"

codepie• 11 years ago

Same error with the link to MIT Mathematics for Computer Science.

natural219• 11 years ago

I cannot disagree more with this line of thinking and the rest of the commenter's general ultra-pedantic attitude.

Please, stop thinking like an "expert" and put yourself in the mind of an 18 year old who is unfamiliar with all of the stuff. Yes, the author could be infinitely more pedantic, precise, and helpful for one specific career outcome (being exactly like you). This means precisely jack for a confused 18-year-old looking for guidance on what areas to spend their time learning programing topics while being medium-ly effective.

Please can the pedantic nonsense and try to focus on the goal.

ljk• 11 years ago

seems like they corrected that typo

PascLeRasc• 11 years ago

I wonder if we could create a github guide kinda like the community-written novel that was around a few days ago.

jnem• 11 years ago

Yeah, also noticed they referenced w3 schools as a source of learning. Guess MDN was not allowed by management.

drinchev3• 11 years ago

For anyone reading this. I strongly recommend to find a better resource than w3school, suggested by Google.

The link is even broken, but this is a tiny detail.

W3School have bad reputation [1] and is considered bad.

[1] http://www.w3fools.com/

philh• 11 years ago

That site doesn't say what's wrong with W3Schools, and it does say "when you're ready to level up, move on" which suggests that it's a reasonable resource for beginners to use.

drinchev3• 11 years ago

For me at least. It's simply incomplete list of popular keywords with some explaination. I can never use it as a full reference. There are [1] many [2] posts [3] suggesting what is bad inside.

1: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/280478/why-not-w3sch... 2: http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/87678/discouraging-w... 3: http://www.codecademy.com/forum_questions/4fd1d78b7e79680003...

afarrell• 11 years ago

For example: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Learn/HTML

But really, if you want to learn html+CSS, you need to spend a bunch of time just making layouts if you want to get a mental model into your head. It is just too finicky to reason about otherwise

WorldWideWayne• 11 years ago

I prefer W3Schools over MDN since W3Schools gets right to the point. MDN would rather have you read three paragraphs on the history of the feature you're trying to use, but I usually don't need a full history on my reference cards.

arikrak• 11 years ago

Except even the w3fools recognizes that w3schools has improved...

weka• 11 years ago

Along with that... going to https of w3schools merits you with:

Your connection is not private

Attackers might be trying to steal your information from www.w3schools.com (for example, passwords, messages, or credit cards). NET::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID

... Scary for someone who's never seen it.

Bad form from Google -- really.

gedrap2• 11 years ago

W3F is brought up quite often, and W3S receives quite a lot of hate, criticism (not always constructive).

But I still use W3S when it's the first result in google search and I am ok with it. It might not be the best learning resource but it's pretty great if you forgot some CSS property, or how some JS method is called. So W3S is fairly good as a cheat sheet.

theaccordance• 11 years ago

Grammar and spelling aside, this is a good reference for those Ask HN "How do I get an internship/first job" posts.

geekrax• 11 years ago

Even Google knows that it's called "Javascript", not "Java Script": http://i.imgur.com/kEpux5f.jpg

jsnk• 11 years ago

I cringed when I read "Java Script".

davexunit• 11 years ago

"JavaScript", actually. ;)

melling• 11 years ago

UX Design is just one mobile Android course.

https://www.udacity.com/course/ud849

Design has become so important that it would be nice to see a lot more resources. Learning to program is relatively easy these days because of the large number of resources. Design is still a dark art.

kornakiewicz• 11 years ago

I bet that if this list would be published on other domain rather than G, it would be not even taken serious.

auvi• 11 years ago

Lisp and Scheme? Scheme is a Lisp. I think they wanted to say Common Lisp and Scheme.

randomsearch• 11 years ago

Lots of criticism here, but very little of it constructive. Please could those people criticising the list explain exactly what is missing, or what should not be on the list?

fecak5• 11 years ago

Regardless of what should or should not be on this guide, it's on Google's Career pages and is being served up to students interested in a career at one of the most admired employers in the world. Not only is it on the career section, it's on a section specifically targeting software engineers, which are considered a key component to Google's success. And the page is incredibly sloppy, both to those in the industry and probably many who don't even code but are in the industry (recruiters, non-technical hiring managers, etc.).

mauricemir4• 11 years ago

Google need to think about this from a "Brand" perspective.

Likewise some of Googles published API's are "in need of improvement" - which is polite civil service speak for your on a PIP

sukilot12• 11 years ago

This doc is exactly how recruiters and managers write. It is written by recruiters.

Iftheshoefits2• 11 years ago

The first sentence in the article encapsulates one of the biggest problems in this industry. It may apply to very specific roles within certain companies, or to specific subdisciplines, but in general the statement is little more than an unsupported assertion. It is very popular in a population heavily weighted by CS graduates, but popularity doesn't imply correctness.

As a thesis statement it is wildly out of sync with all but a few of the bullet items, most of which have almost no relation to "CS fundamentals". Working on projects outside of class/work is broadly applicable to any field, as is contributing to large projects as part of a team or group; neither of these requires "CS fundamentals." OO programming and learning specific languages are likewise disconnected. Some of the points aren't bad with respect to being required in order to be a good software engineer, but even those are too scant on detail (even for a bullet list).

Most of the "learn about" points are vague. In particular, as an example, the point about DS/algorithms is awful. What does "learn about" mean? Satellite engineers "learn about" materials, orbital mechanics, radiation and E&M, but they aren't in general expected to know the fundamentals (as a physicist would understand the term) of the theories of particle physics or gravitation for example.

The bullet points read like a survey of random computing related topics. There is no focus or cohesion connecting them to being a good software engineer. It reads like somebody's random meanderings when contemplating something they might find interesting within the field of computing. It's not a guide; it's a disconnected hodgepodge.

Remove everything that isn't related to being a good engineer (that would be almost all the points about sub-discipline-specific items, like machine learning), elaborate on the DS/Algorithms points, and provide something in the guide to actually support the opening statement (good luck).

That specific enough for you?

lambdaelite2• 11 years ago

I generally agree, but I would also argue that they've left off the things that relate to being a good engineer, at least for engineer in the traditional sense.

agounaris• 11 years ago

Learn UX, AI, Cryptography, parallel programming, compilers, maths... lol don't let those guys/girls or HR write those guides they put all the keywords in there

hanief• 11 years ago

I compiled a list of online courses on Computer Science and Electrical Engineering the other day. The curriculum is based on my old CS college syllabus. Maybe it can be useful for students. Feel free to add something on the comment.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oZ6eY7WqVNGgyRSF9F8L...

seasoup• 11 years ago

The message: You don't have to learn much to be a software engineer just master the discrete fields of object oriented programming, web development, ux design, artificial intelligence, building compilers, and cryptography.

If you master one of these fields, you'll be doing well. I agree on taking an intro to each of these, but only to figure out which one you want to specialize in later on and because it's nice to know something about other related fields. You won't master all of these in your career, so don't let the list intimidate you.

gphil• 11 years ago

I read your comment first, then I clicked through to see if they really suggesting "mastering" all of these fields (which is nigh impossible as you suggest.) They just say to "learn" them, and if by that they mean "take an intro-level college course on the topic" then I think it's pretty reasonable. It's my opinion that people should wait until after undergrad to specialize (in industry or academia.)

javajosh• 11 years ago

The author used the phrase "Develop strong understanding in.." in two places, "Algorithms and Data Structures" and "Operating Systems". The other fields are predicated by "Learn..", which I take to be a weaker recommendation.

64bit_snack• 11 years ago

What is Google even trying to say with this?

You don't need a CS degree because you can learn everything for free on the internet?

famousactress• 11 years ago

I don't know if that's what they're trying to say but that's absolutely true, provided you're diligent, curious, and someone who does well with self-directed learning.

DennisP• 11 years ago

Given that they linked to online sources for everything, I'd say yes. Some of those Coursera courses in particular are very high quality.

Also worth nothing: "an increasing proportion of people hired at Google these days don’t have college degrees."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2014/04/07/how-goo...

nostrademons• 11 years ago

They're trying to increase the pipeline of software developers. One way to solve the problem of not being able to hire the workforce you need is to train more workforce. This guide is a very inexpensive way for them to increase the top end of the funnel at basically zero cost or obligation to themselves. The topics are pretty specific to the types of work you'd do at Google; they're good, although the field of software engineering is much broader than what's listed here.

walshemj• 11 years ago

They want "people like us" as L & S did CS degrees therefore their recruiting is slanted that way.

Same for top 10 Law schools and big Law

bradleyjg• 11 years ago

I don't think you are disagreeing with the article. I took one of the crypto classes recommended. I did well, learned a lot, and enjoyed myself, but in no way does that mean I've mastered cryptography.

All in all the recommendations seem reasonably achievable in a few years of conscientious part time effort.

theandrewbailey2• 11 years ago

Anecdata: I've done quite well in my software engineer career without knowing much about compilers or AI (aside from what they generally do), and I doubt that I've "mastered" cryptography that much.

gonzo413• 11 years ago

Does the advice of "just learn to use a few different languages and build a CRUD app that has a cloud hosted database" not hold true anymore?

A really good learning experience is having a crack at making the same app for both android and IOS (much frustration with objective c) For a newbie stuff like persistence storage, learning MVC, learning objective c, java, android and iOS, sqlite, and all the other stuff in between (Xcode is awful).

aAl of the other CS stuff is valid. Although i feel like you probably won't have the necessary buy in to learn algorithms and data structures well if you don't have a degree / GPA on the line.

djur• 11 years ago

Do you still need to buy an Apple computer in order to develop iOS apps? As long as that's true, I don't think "make an iOS app" belongs in any general-purpose advice for aspiring developers.

gonzo413• 11 years ago

True, most schools run both, or at least my university did/does. but for the self taught, go android, more phones thus cheaper to get into the game.

Bostonian• 11 years ago

I don't see much about scientific computing, such as the topics covered in the Numerical Recipes books, many of which are relevant to data scientists.

GFK_of_xmaspast4• 11 years ago

This seems mostly fine, a robust undergraduate education should cover most of those bases.

lambdaelite2• 11 years ago

It's interesting to compare this list with the topics covered by the Software Engineering Book of Knowledge or the Software Engineering PE exam. Requirements engineering, formal documentation, estimation, project management, and ethics all seem to be overlooked in Google's guide.

I guess this is sufficient to be an engineer at Google, but this wouldn't be close to sufficient in other industries.

quonn2• 11 years ago

That's software engineering 101. Everyone learns that in school. Of course Google still needs all of that, just like everyone else. But you can pick up the knowledge part (that is actually tested in exams) very, very quickly.

Iftheshoefits2• 11 years ago

No, you can't pick it up "very, very quickly." That is a dismissive and indirect way to assert that engineering is somehow easier or requires less intellectual rigor than "higher" disciplines like CS or math.

greedoshotlast2• 11 years ago

The message: these are the kinds of employees we want to hire.

If you follow these guidelines there is a good chance we would hire you.

Universities: make sure you are teaching students these skills if you want us to hire your students.

mauricemir4• 11 years ago

Interesting they don't mention any Database related tech ie set theory relvars and PL/SQL et all (plus the no sql query language)

bsdpython• 11 years ago

Databases weren't part of the core CS curriculum at least when I was a student. I still don't understand why since it seems as core to understanding modern software as anything to me.

mauricemir4• 11 years ago

No wonder some told me that new devs often cant write a simple SELECT statement or use a database from the command line.

theandrewbailey2• 11 years ago

The university I went to seemed like it was half Java, half .NET, and half databases. Seriously, databases leaked into everything, and they had database classes that were just as extensive and in depth as the other two 'tracks'. We also had an ORM god for a professor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Halpin

natch• 11 years ago

This is explicitly a guide for university/college students, and maybe that should be reflected in a title edit. Otherwise the article could be read as Google assuming that a university context is the only time and place to learn.

jpwagner• 11 years ago

Interesting, when I use the phrase "learn xyz" i mean "become very proficient at xyz" (maybe a notch below expert).

This post and the comments here seem to indicate that most people take it to mean "get an intro to xyz" (a notch above novice).

kin• 11 years ago

This is a guide for technical development. What I think is useful is DevOps knowledge and knowing your way around Unix or even Windows. Spinning up VMs and setting up your dev environment is often times more than just following directions because there's always some special case you run into that requires some knowledge and experience to solve.

ken47• 11 years ago

Does anybody else notice and question the lack of functional programming on that list?

endymi0n• 11 years ago

Learn other Programming Languages: [...] Lisp and Scheme.

Apart from that, there's probably a reason no top 100 company uses a purely functional language as their foundation.

MichaelGG• 11 years ago

It's Google. They're notorious for using... less than advanced languages, to put it nicely. (C++, Java, Python, Go) Obviously it works for them. But just imagine if the founders had been more inclined to a LISP or an ML.

GFK_of_xmaspast4• 11 years ago

We'd still be using yahoo?

spopejoy• 11 years ago

Big time.

It's especially depressing given their huge focus on "object oriented programming," given the 1000s of travesties birthed in its name on an hourly basis in BigCos of the world.

1) Even if you don't code FP in your day job, your sanity and code will benefit permanently from a strong grounding in it.

2) Nothing beats getting paid to code FP.

mparramon• 11 years ago

This reminds me of my 0 to web developer guide:

www.developingandrails.com/2015/01/crash-course-on-modern-web-development.html

jedberg• 11 years ago

IT makes me sad that they have to specify this: "Checking off all items in this guide does not guarantee a job at Google"

umbs• 11 years ago

Surprised, computer networks and protocols are not listed. Isn't that knowledge essential?

yzh• 11 years ago

I think for parallel computing, this udacity course is very nice too: https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-parallel-programming...

KedarMhaswade• 11 years ago

Add to your repertoire - Java Script, ...

Should I ignore this as a typo? How am I to rely then on this as a classified information?

gedrap2• 11 years ago

Eh, I agree with most other commentators, saying that it's quite dissappointing and fairly confused why it got 300+ upvotes. Probably the influence of google.com domain. I even double checked the URL if it's not some publicly editable page that happened to be under google.com.

If I had to pick one tip for a junior developer, I'd say slow down when it comes to adopting methodologies, techniques and use your own judgement. What's the benefit of doing? What are alternatives?

When you learn about OOP design patterns, it's easy to suddenly see them everywhere. Factory here, singleton there, and with a bit of imagination observer goes here. Not everything should fit into one pattern or another. One of the benefits of the patterns is that it might make the solution cleaner, easier to understand. If it increases the complexity - don't (or at least think more about it)!

When you learn about Agile (although nowadays it's a very ambiguous term and loads of stuff goes under this label), it's tempting to start organizing standup meetings, plan everything under sprints, assign story points, do TDD, etc. But think twice before going for it. What do you get back? Maybe the morning standups are not beneficial for the team, and just distracts everyone? Maybe story points are not worth the overhead of agreeing on, allocating them, etc and your team can do just fine without them?

If some methodology doesn't really stick to your team, maybe it's an indicator that they are totally fine without it? For example, maybe you haven't had a morning standup for a week and no one has brought it up, everything's going smoothly. Not saying that the listed methodologies are wrong, they are not, just sometimes they are not beneficial.

Same goes for a new language, a new promising framework, etc.

Be critical.

cwt137• 11 years ago

Hmm. They have something on testing, but nothing on requirements writing or project management.

Guide for Technical Development

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