Customer Requirements - Everything Programmers Need To Know Before Writing Code

by Marco Behler

Feel like strangling your boss or customer for their vague and ever-changing software requirements? You might have that nagging feeling that you don’t exactly grasp what your customer really wants. You might be rushing out your code in headless chicken mode because you underestimated the workload. Or perhaps after everything has been delivered, your rate or your company’s doesn’t even match most elance.com projects, because your estimation and billing were so far off.

Learn how proper work on requirements – not just your technical skills – can rescue your next software project.

90 pages, ebook

First published September 9, 2015

Reviews

[Johnny · Rating 2 out of 5]

The most important part you need to know about failing software projects: It’s not about the technology. They fail for many reasons, but nearly never for the wrong selection of a database or framework. They fail for communication problems, unclear goals and many more. Marco Behler gives in this book a good overview on the real problems and how many of them can be addressed.

You can read along and nod in agreement. But at the end of the book I had to ask what I had learned. The book did not deliver enough value for me. Too often it stayed only at the surface where I hoped for more details. The practice time is a good idea, but didn't help either. For a novice there where far too few details and an expert would most likely know that already. So far the intended audience is a mystery to me. Maybe you are a better match...

The images didn’t work on the first version for the Kindle. That problem was quickly fixed, however the black background made it still nearly impossible to see what the image is all about. Using plain text to explain the examples or formatting it as source code would be a big improvement.

[Markus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Expected much more from the book. More indepth information about how to ask the customer the right question. Might be a good introduction for the whole development process when you are new to programming.