First things first, this is a classic book by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister that everyone working in the software industry must read.
The third edition divides this book into 6 parts with 39 chapters and 249 pages. It is an easy book to read and follow. However, it is necessary to stop constantly to reflect on the facts and ideas presented. Also, the reading would be like a map of the industry if you had a lot of experience in the software development industry. By this, I would like to say that many, maybe all, of the ideas presented in the book are implemented in all software-based companies I have seen.
I can highlight many things from this book, but I want to show only two contradictory and essential ideas here.
On the one hand, while reading the book, I remembered many situations in my career. In my point of view, it is like all software-based companies have read the book and implemented all the ideas from it in our day-to-day routines.
On the other hand, it looks that companies implemented the ideas wrong or not as a whole and forgot to read the small notes about each technique presented.
At first, what I just described in the last two paragraphs could be very contradictory. However, I want to quote something from this book: """ The statistics about reading are particularly discouraging: The average software developer, for example, doesn’t own a single book on the subject of his or her work, and hasn’t ever read one. """
I would like to know if these statistics are correct and if the authors provided the source. However, it could explain why this book is so powerful, with so many good ideas implemented across the industry with little success though.
I hope you enjoy reading this book as I had. It is a must read book, for sure. Enjoy it!