READING STILL IN PROGRESS

This is a big book and hugely practice without any hands on code. There are real life stories from the authors to accompany the ideas they have and illustrate the points they're trying to make.

Getting out of a mess

The core principles are:

• Small batches (don't do large updates, do small incremental updates)
• Good now is better than perfect in the future
• Use a pull method for prioritising tasks (planned features), not a push of whatever is loudest
• Scrum methodology - pick 3 tasks for each person a week on the monday, review the tasks on the friday, what problems were had, prioritise removing barriers so we can speed up development where it's needed.
• Automate as much as possible for consistency and to keep a record of changes and the reasons for changes in version control.

Workstation fleet management

• Treat machines like cattle, not pets. Pets are loved and unique and need special treatment. Cattle are generalised and all hearded and treated the same.
• Get everyone on the same OS.
• Automate OS set up and reconfiguration
• Automate software updates, roll out to small groups of those most alert to changes first then to ever expanding larger groups
• Get planned hardware refresh cycles, only have support for so many versions and reduced support can be a push to getting onto supported OS / hardware.