Addison Wesley Modern Software Engineering: Doing What Works to Build Better Software Faster

I’ve been involved in building various kinds of software for nearly 20 years now (the book describes this as engineering, rather than building), and this book describes very well of what we should aim to when building software and this very much matches my personal perception of that. The book covers very fundamental subjects, yet it is really easy to read. We should not really treat ideas described in this book as dogma, but I believe that every software engineer, software developer, programmer or whatever they call themselves should read this book.

Describes many important concepts, and makes clear why those concepts matter. Such concepts are incrementalism, feedback, separation of concerns, abstraction, ... Some technical concepts are explained somewhere else in more depth, but I think that's fine: The book provides a good overview.

I loved this book, from start to end. All topics were well founded with a good amount of good examples. I understand that people expect more practical examples with real scenarios, but as stated by David, the book is not a recipe to achieve quality, but a foundation based on ingredients that are likely to lead your development to success. The examples given were simple, to illustrate and have a starting point to describe an idea. It's not only about coding my fellow friends, it's much more.

A collection of interesting approaches and insights on how to become or remain a modern software engineer.

I really like Dave Farley, the author of this book and host of the Continuous Delivery channel. His treatment of software engineering from a true engineering perspective was eye opening to me. I've been an developer for years and years, but had never thought of it directly in that manner. You won't read it in one sitting - the subject matter is perfect for skipping around to different chapters, depending on what you're currently working on or what topics pique your interest. Great book!