I recently finished reading „Software Craftsmanship“ by @sandromancuso. I came to know about the book after many people tweeted about it following the SoCraTes 2014. I always followed @unclebobmartin and read a lot of articles in that realm. So a book about the whole movement seemed a good complement to „get things straight“.
I bought the Kindle version from Leanpub and read through it in about a week. The book surprised me a bit as it was not about hands-on practice and tools – as I had expected – but more about the ideologic underpinnings of the Software Craftsmanship „movement“. It contains a lot of stories from the trenches and describes many of the challenges that Sandro had to overcome. It also shows how he went about tackling those projects and gaining experience from that. I always had the impression that he was continually on the search of improving himself – which I try to do myself. And which turns out to be the main goal of being a software craftsman.
Sandro also opened my eyes towards the distinction between the process-oriented agile movement and the more technically-oriented software craftsmanship movement. It was nice to see how they both evolved and it seems important to me that we don’t forget how they complement each other. You shouldn’t do one without the other.
Here and there we find out something about „buzzwords“ like master, journeyman and apprentice. But Sandros main goal seems to be to instill in the reader a wish to better themselves and be in charge of their own careers and lives. He has a clear view of responsibilities and give some common ground for making decisions about code, career and life. I found it very inspiring.
Who should get it?
People who want to know more about where the ideas of being a software craftsman come from. And who also want some historic background. And who have asked themselves, why not everything is better now that agile is implemented in ever-more companies. And what we could do to make it better 😉
If you get to read it or if you have read it, let me know your thoughts…