This book does justice to its title and subtitle- it clearly tells you the basic design principles to write good code which is easy to read, debug and extend. At first glance the title may seem misleading as it uses the word “Agile Developer” but there isn’t much specific to agile in the book, though familiarity with terms like Scrum or Kanaban or TDD would be an added advantage.
software development
Book Review: Apprenticeship Patterns
Here is a book which sounds different from its title: “Apprenticeship Patterns” but 
considering the complete title: “Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman” would make some sense of what the book would be about. And then once you read the back cover of the book then I think its becomes much clearer of what you can expect in the book. So this is how I went about buying the book – I had never heard of this book before, found it in the bookstore and purchased it in no time. I did search for almost all the Computer related books on Flipkart, but didn’t find this. So someone who would want to purchase this book can go here. Ok, but I need to convince you to buy the book, so here is my attempt to do so:
Book Review: The Passionate Programmer written by Chad Fowler
I just happened to get to know about this book while browsing through the books on Flipkart and the
book immediately caught my attention. So here’s my review of the book:
First things first:
- Really cool cover page of the book – [I know Chad Fowler’s musical interest has some role to play in the designing of the cover page]
- 200 odd pages book- So you don’t feel its overdose of information
- Short chapters, lighter book. Each chapter followed by Act it! which guides you on how to implement the ideas explained.
- Nice and legible font used for the content.
Automation, Smart Cards and RTOs
There has been a lot of talk going on about Smart Cards replacing the Book system for Driving License and Vehicle registration books. Which should imply that the system has been computerized or automatized, reducing the response time from the RTO end. Tat’s all just for the telling. They still have loads of manual processes, loads of legacy files stacked, but one can see desktops with TFTs monitors and the operators doing the data entry jobs. Today I had to wait for almost 12 hours before I could get the Speed post tracking number for the Smart card they had sent to the postal address. How did they finally get the number? The person concerned got huge set of files- may be around 15, got a register and did a lookup operation in the register to find out the corresponding Speed post file for the given Vehicle registration number. Then he scrambled with those files before writing down the Tracking Number on a piece of paper. It doesn’t end there – They arent in a position to tell where the envelope, containing the smart card, is- Is it with them or with the Post office. So I had to run to the post office, where they took just minutes to tell me that the the envelope is returned to the sender- thanks to their tracking application. Now RTO wants the proof that its with them- can u believe that- they dont keep a track of the inventory they have. What’s the automation system doing there? And moreover to search if the Smart card is with the RTO they have a Notepad, which is in a very bad condition due to constant lookup, where they write down the registration numbers of vehicle’s whose smart cards they have. Isnt it archaic?