Making Good Software

What follows is the list of the 11 most influential sources I’ve had, any software developer should be able to learn very valuable lessons from them.

1.- Kent Beck

• Creator of the Extreme Programming (XP) methodology which includes TDD and pair programming.
• Co-creator of the JUnit framework with Erich Gamma.
• Original signatory from the Agile Manifesto.
• Recommended readings from him.
  • Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change
  • Test Driven Development: By Example

2.- Martin Fowler

• First one to conceive the term Dependency Injection.
• Original signatory from the Agile Manifesto.
• One of my favorite authors, recommended  readings.
  • Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code
  • Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
  • UML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Standard Object Modeling Language

3.- Robert C. Martin (aka Uncle Bob)

• Creator of the SOLID principles.
• Leader of the development team for Fitnesse
• Recommended readings.
  • Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship
  • Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices

4.- Craig Larman

• One of the main promoters of the GRASP principles.
• Recommended readings.
  • Applying UML and Patterns: An Introduction to Object-Oriented Analysis and Design and Iterative Development
  • Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager’s Guide

5.- Steve McConell

• Author of one of the most popular programming books-  “Code Complete“, this is one of the first books where coding is seen a as craftsmanship activity rather than an industrial one, he is considered to be one of the most influential authors ever, he is also author of “Rapid development“

6.- Mike Cohn

• He popularized planning poker and the use of story points.
• Original signatory from the Agile Manifesto.
• My favorite author about agile, recommended  readings.
  • Agile Estimating and Planning
  • User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development

7.- Kathy Sierra / Bert Bates

• Authors of my favorite series of books, “heading first…”.
• Recommended  readings.
  • Head First Design Patterns
  • Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML
  • Head First Java

8.- Ward Cunningham

• Creator of the first Wiki.
• Inventor of Fit.
• Recommended  readings.
  • Fit for Developing Software: Framework for Integrated Tests

9.- Andy Hunt / David Thomas.

• Authors of “The pragmatic programmer“,one of the must influential books for programmers ever written, in it they introduced some of the most important principles applied today in the software development industry, as DRY and “broken windows“.
• Andy Hunt is also signatory of the Agile Manifesto.
• Dave Thomas has published a series of exercises to help programmers to improve their coding skills called code katas.

10.- Erich Gamma.

• Co-author of one of the most influential recent books “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software“.
• Co-writer of the JUnit software testing framework with Kent Beck.

And the most important one: The programming community. (YOU)

The most important influence for me is the whole programming community, that includes all the people I’ve read articles from in the internet, and particularly all the people that has used their time to write in this very same blog their comments, to all of you, THANKS!