Developing Programmers .com

I recently picked up a copy of Mike Gunderloy’s book, “Coder To Developer”. The title grabbed me right away because it’s exactly what this site is about! Reading it in fragments of time between work and home commitments, I was actually excited to try things after reading each chapter.

The bulk of the book is exactly the things I’ve said or have been aiming to say on this site, but organized into a complete work that takes you step by step through the development process of the example software. Mike makes the excellent point that when you’re coding professionally you’re delivering a whole product, not just source code.

In places there were things I would add. In places I found myself having to think back to the commercial world where “obfuscation” can be seen as a good thing. In places I learned a new trick or picked up new ideas. I even learned a few things about the “.Net” framework along the way.

All in all, Coder To Developer is a great read. It’s aimed at small teams (say 3 to 5 people) so there are issues it doesn’t cover in depth for larger or smaller groups. Having said that, the ideas presented are still valuable for larger groups, just not the final word.

To give you an idea of coverage, I’ll list the chapter titles. I’m sure I’ll be mentioning this book again in future articles about specific topics.

Chapter 1: Planning Your Project
Chapter 2: Organizing Your Project
Chapter 3: Using Source Code Control Effectively
Chapter 4: Coding Defensively
Chapter 5: Preventing Bugs with Unit Testing
Chapter 6: Pumping Up the IDE
Chapter 7: Digging Into Source Code
Chapter 8: Generating Code
Chapter 9: Tracking and Squashing Bugs
Chapter 10: Logging Application Activity
Chapter 11: Working with Small Teams
Chapter 12: Creating Documentation
Chapter 13: Mastering the Build Process
Chapter 14: Protecting Your Intellectual Property
Chapter 15: Delivering the Application

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See the Coder To Developer web site for more information.