Business, life, webdev

Java Posse Roundup 2010 – Suggested Books

With so many great recommendations…
I felt it was right to share it with the world. Here are some of the books that people in the Java Posse Roundup 2010 recommended you to read (quickly).

Agile Books

Lean software development an Agile Toolkit by Mary and Tom Poppendieck.
Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn.
User Stories Applied: For Agile Software Development by Mike Cohn
Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
Practices of an Agile Developer by Andy Hunt
Agile Retrospectives; Making Good Teams Great by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin

Testing Books

xUnit Test Patterns by Gerard Meszaros
Growing Object-Oriented Software Guided By Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce

Complex Event Processing

The Power of Events: An Introduction to Complex Event Processing in Distributed Enterprise Systems by David C. Luckham

Version Control

Pro Git, by Scott Chacon
Version Control with Git: Powerful Tools and Techniques for Collaborative Software Development by Jon Loeliger
Pragmatic Version Control Using Git, by Travis Swicegood

Scala

Beginning Scala by David Pollack
Programming in Scala by Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon, and Bill Venners

JavaScript

JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford

Career Books

Career 2.0 by Jared Richardson.
Passionate Programmer by Chad Fowler.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
The Myth of Multitasking: How “Doing It All” Gets Nothing Done by Dave Crenshaw
The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal Save The Relationship and Still Say No by William Ury
What Should I Do with My Life?: The True Story of People Who Answered the Ultimate Question by Po Bronson

Business

Peopleware by Tom DeMarco.
Small Giants by Bo Birlingham.
Nudge by Richard H. Thaler.
Drive, by Daniel H. Pink.
Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak and Robert D. Hare
Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
The Management Myth: Why the Experts Keep Getting it Wrong by Matthew Stewart
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (P.S.) by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson (BTW, you can get a free version in iTune for the audio version)
In Search of Stupidity by Merrill R. (Rick) Chapman

Software Projects and Their Teams, Groups, Processes and People

Adrenalin Junkies and Template Zombies: Understanding Patterns of Project Behaviour by Tom DeMarco, Peter Hruschka, Tim Lister, Suzanne Robertson

Release It! writing and maintaining software from an operations perspective

On Intelligence by Jeff Hawkins – How a new understanding of the brain will lead to the creation of truly intelligent machines

Business

The Web Is Shifting

Here is another lighting talk I’ve planed to this year Java Posse Roundup. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to give it. So in order to share it with some girls that might find it interesting – Here you go:

The web is becoming more sociable than searchable, research firm Hitwise said that the two sites accounted for 14 per cent of all US internet visits last week. Facebook’s home page recorded 7.07 per cent of traffic and Google’s 7.03 per cent. You may read more about the fact that Facebook got more unique users in the USA then Google all last week… so it’s clearly the direction that the web is moving. I only wonder, what are people doing all this time on Facebook.

Facebook is like a Starbucks (You know… friends don’t let they friend drink there) where everyone hangs out for hours but almost never buys anything. The revenue gap between sites like Facebook and Google should narrow over time. Cost-per-click search ads are extremely good at harvesting intent, but bad at generating intent.

Business

Startup Best Practices

Here is the presentation I’ve used in my lighting talk at the Java Posse roundup 2010

There are just few ‘lessons’ here. IMHO, the important ones.
Over the past 15 years, I’ve been in start ups and swat teams in side big companies. There are lots of good things that I’ve learn, but also, lots of bold examples to how not to run things. In the end of the day, it’s all about peopleware and open commutation. But like any other aspect in life, lots of other methods you can use in order to be better and excel.

Disclaimer: In some of the slides I took some ideas from Rework book.

life, Sport

Why you should run on regular bases?

Here are few points that I’ve took from the article in the WSJ:

* People who exercise regularly heal from colds 20-30% faster.
* People who walked briskly for 45 minutes, 5 days a week for 12-15 weeks reduced their number of sick days by 25-50%.
* 36% of US adults didn’t engage in ANY leisure activities in 2008. Can this be true?
* Exercise can lower the risk of stroke by 27%, diabetes by 50%, high-blood pressure by 40%, risk of recurring breast cancer by 50%, colon cancer by 60%, Alzheimer’s disease by 40%.
* Physical activity reduces erosion of telomeres, which essentially is an anti-aging effect at the cellular level.

So next time you thinking on doing some sport activity – follow Nike rule “Just do it!”.

Business, life

Good Books I’m reading now

It’s mainly a post to my presents (not that they are going to read it).
Hey, after all these years that you thought me the love of books. Here is a short list of what I’m reading when I don’t have time (usually around midnight). In this list I’ve included some recent books I’ve read:

What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures. After Outliers, Blink and Tipping Point anything that Mr. Gladwell will write – I promise to read (as quickly as I can).
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable – it’s very good book on a simple topic. We know NOTHING on the stock market.
“Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature” – Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don’t–and, most importantly, can’t–know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
In a similar way to the Black Swan – it contain lots of answers on how can we recover from an economic crisis.
The Intelligent Investor: It is the best book I’ve read about investing. The greatest investment advisor of the twentieth century, Benjamin Graham taught and inspired people worldwide. Graham’s philosophy of “value investing” — which shields investors from substantial error and teaches them to develop long-term strategies — has made The Intelligent Investor the stock market bible ever since its original publication in 1949.