DevOpsChat Special Guest: Steve McConnell
We are honored to have Steve McConnell joining us for this #DevOpsChat about the central role of software craftsmanship in DevOps and the value of good estimation. You can see the questions for this DevOpsChat at the bottom of this page.
Steve is the CEO and Chief Software Engineer at Construx Software as well as being a highly regarded author of several seminal books including Code Complete, Rapid Development and Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art. He is also a past Editor in Chief of IEEE Software and past Chair of the IEEE Professional Practices Committee.
Construx helps software development organizations become more productive and get to market faster with high quality, innovative products. For 20 years they have been providing insight, techniques, and recommendations through training and consulting on software development best practices. They cover the complete software development life cycle, with a practical approach that helps clients achieve their business goals.
Recently Steve has been focusing on providing Software Development eLearning including the creation of his Understanding Software Projects Lecture Series in which he describes the way he thinks about software projects and shares the understanding he has gained from decades of research, hands-on practice, and helping companies improve. The series covers all kinds of projects and makes heavy use of case studies. Each lecture is free if you access them as they are published.
Video Interview
A conversation with Steve McConnell about software craftsmanship and estimation, including:
- Why he wrote Code Complete
- Why the quality of code matters
- Why good software estimation is important
- Comments on the #NoEstimates movement
Questions for this DevOpsChat
- DevOps places a strong emphasis on software craftsmanship. Do you think this is important and, if so, why?
- Many would agree it is important to produce high quality code. What characteristics do you think high quality code has?
- In your view, what is the best way to enable a team to consistently delivery high quality code?
- Do you think software estimation is important and, if so, what do you see as the main benefits?
- What challenges do you most commonly see as barriers to producing good software estimates?
- Recently there has been the #NoEstimates movement. Do you think estimation will continue to be needed in the future?