software engineering - Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Managing Technical Debt: Reducing Friction in Software Development

By Scott J. Pearson | February 28, 2020August 13, 2023 by Scott J. Pearson

In software development, technical debt is understood as something in software design that slowly reduces the speed of development. To mix metaphors, technical debt causes friction in the development process. Over time, work arounds cause “interest” to accrue on the principal of bad design. The business and software development are negatively impacted, and eventually a “tipping point” is reached. Then a plan is made to pay down some (but usually not all) of the technical…

Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change

By Scott J. Pearson | February 5, 2020February 5, 2020 by Scott J. Pearson

This book helped change the way that software development is generally practiced, from the leadership to the programmers, from the business to the design. It is important to note that this book has been delivered in two very different editions. The first edition in 1999 set the direction while the second edition in 2005 brought insight out of several years of experience in an updated text. What’s so “extreme” about Extreme Programming? First, it advocates…