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...Much like the Mac, this book “just works”, because it takes the best from lessons learned from team leaders and team players and takes the mystery out of the project management processes as appl...
-Robert Pritchett |
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It's rare to have this much fun reading a book about software. The ideas are smart, relevant, and fundamental. I can be a better programmer today because of the things I read today.
-Joe Fair |
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I haven't had the chance to read and review any books from the Pragmatic Programmers series. I decided to change that with the book Ship It! - A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects by ...
-Thomas "Duffbert" Duff |
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(Sep 24)
Many of us are familiar with The Pragmatic Programmer. One of the better known concepts from the book is broken windows.
The idea behind broken windows is simple. Once a single window in a building is broken, the other windows are more likely to be broken and the building vandalized. The only way to keep the entire building in good shape is timely repairs.
The concept maps well to compiles and automated tests. Keep them clean and creeping problems never get a foothold in your product. If you break something, fix it as soon as you notice it.
But this weekend at the Pacific Northwest Software Symposium in Seattle, an attendee told me about a new spin on this classic concept.
Mark Copec (who works at Contigo) mentioned a psychology study dealing with littering. The study showed that people were more likely to litter in a dirty parking lot, but a clean parking lot stays clean.
Just like the better known broken windows principle, the dirty parking lot principle tells us there is only one way to keep our projects manageable. Keep them clean every day. Run a continuous integration product (like Hudson or Cruise Control) and fix every break. Once the product has 117 broken tests, no one looks to see if there code commit had any affect at all on the test suite. Too many broken windows to count.
The study, Conformity: Influencing Behavior, raises some interesting issues. We can influence the behavior of our coworkers by keeping our own areas clean.
Mark summed it up well when he said "It got me thinking again about the different types of norms that influence people's behaviour, not only litter and parking lots, but also, developers and their coding habits."
Quick! Tell me... is your parking lot clean right now? No? Go clean it up.
Category: Agile
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My "Practical Test Automation" talk discusses why, and who, should be writing tests. (Hint, invite developers to this talk!)
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