任何一个以开发软件为生的人都需要掌握一种经过实践检验的方法，来使自己工作得更好、更快、更高效。本书在“如何节省时间”方面提供了宝贵意见和实用工具，无论你使用何种平台，都能立刻应用于其中。大师级的开发者Neal Ford不仅提供了关于提高生产力的建议：如何更明智地工作，排除干扰，充分利用计算机，以及避免重复；同时他还详细介绍了许多有价值的实践经验，帮助你规避常见陷阱，改善代码，从而为团队创造更大的价值。

通过本书，你将学习到如何：在写代码前先写测试；一丝不苟地管理你的对象的生命周期；只做你现在必须要做的，而非你将来可能要做的；将古老的哲学应用到软件开发当中；敢于质疑权威，而不是盲目遵从标准；利用元编程，将困难转为容易，化不可能为可能；确保同一方法中的所有代码处于同一个抽象层面；选择合适的编辑器，打造最佳工具组合。

这些不是空泛的理论，而是Ford现实的经验成果。不论你是初学者还是富有多年经验的专家，本书中简单而直接的原则对你的工作和职业生涯都将有所裨益。

FOREWORD

PREFACE

 1 INTRODUCTION

Why a Book on Programmer Productivity?

What This Book Is About

Where to Go Now?

Part One MECHANICS

 2 ACCELERATION

Launching Pad

Accelerators

Macros

Summary

 3 FOCUS

Kill Distractions

Search Trumps Navigation

Find Hard Targets

Use Rooted Views

Use Sticky Attributes

Use Project-Based Shortcuts

Multiply Your Monitors

Segregate Your Workspace with Virtual Desktops

Summary

 4 AUTOMATION

Don’t Reinvent Wheels

Cache Stuff Locally

Automate Your Interaction with Web Sites

Interact with RSS Feeds

Subvert Ant for Non-Build Tasks

Subvert Rake for Common Tasks

Subvert Selenium to Walk Web Pages

Use Bash to Harvest Exception Counts

Replace Batch Files with Windows Power Shell

Use Mac OS X Automator to Delete Old Downloads

Tame Command-Line Subversion

Build a SQL Splitter in Ruby

Justifying Automation

Don’t Shave Yaks

Summary

 5 CANONICALITY

DRY Version Control

Use a Canonical Build Machine

Indirection

Use Virtualization

DRY Impedance Mismatches

DRY Documentation

Summary

Part Two PRACTICE

 6 TEST-DRIVEN DESIGN

Evolving Tests

Code Coverage

 7 STATIC ANALYSIS

Byte Code Analysis

Source Analysis

Generate Metrics with Panopticode

Analysis for Dynamic Languages

 8 GOOD CITIZENSHIP

Breaking Encapsulation

Constructors

Static Methods

Criminal Behavior

 9 YAGNI

 10 ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS

Aristotle’s Essential and Accidental Properties

Occam’s Razor

The Law of Demeter

Software Lore

 11 QUESTION AUTHORITY

Angry Monkeys

Fluent Interfaces

Anti-Objects

 12 META-PROGRAMMING

Java and Reflection

Testing Java with Groovy

Writing Fluent Interfaces

Whither Meta-Programming?

 13 COMPOSED METHOD AND SLAP

Composed Method in Action

SLAP

 14 POLYGLOT PROGRAMMING

How Did We Get Here? And Where Exactly Is Here?

Where Are We Going? And How Do We Get There?

Ola’s Pyramid

 15 FIND THE PERFECT TOOLS

The Quest for the Perfect Editor

The Candidates

Choosing the Right Tool for the Job

Un-Choosing the Wrong Tools

 16 CONCLUSION: CARRYING ON THE CONVERSATION

APPENDIX: BUILDING BLOCKS

INDEX