O'Reilly Press Room: Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It--New from O'Reilly

Sebastopol, CA—Many claims are made about how certain tools, technologies, and practices improve software development. But which claims are verifiable, and which are merely wishful thinking? In Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It (O'Reilly Media, $44.99 USD), leading thinkers such as Steve McConnell, Barry Boehm, and Barbara Kitchenham offer essays that uncover the truth and unmask myths commonly held among the software development community. Their insights may surprise you.

Are some programmers really ten times more productive than others?
Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster?
Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software?
Do design patterns actually make better software?
What effect does personality have on pair programming?
What matters more: how far apart people are geographically, or how far apart they are in the org chart?

Advance Praise
"We call ourselves "engineers," but programming processes are mostly dictated by comfort and momentum instead of being driven by data. With this wealth of empirical data about writing code, finally our processes can be as scientific as our personalities."
—Jason Cohen, founder, Smart Bear and founder, WPEngine

For a review copy or more information please email peyton@oreilly.com. Please include your delivery address and contact information.

About the Editors

Andy Oram is an editor at O'Reilly Media, a highly respected book publisher and technology information provider. An employee of the company since 1992, Andy currently specializes in free software and open source technologies. His work for O'Reilly includes the first books ever published commercially in the United States on Linux, and the 2001 title Peer-to-Peer. His modest programming and system administration skills are mostly self-taught.

View Andy Oram's full profile page.

Greg Wilson holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh, and has worked on high-performance scientific computing, data visualization, and computer security. He is the author of Data Crunching and Practical Parallel Programming (MIT Press, 1995), a contributing editor at Doctor Dobb's Journal, and an adjunct professor in Computer Science at the University of Toronto.

View Greg Wilson's full profile page.

Additional Resources
For more information about the book, including table of contents, index, author bios, and cover graphic, see: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596808310

About O'Reilly

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.

Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It--New from O'Reilly

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