A computer is really, really good at identifying the differences between two chunks of text.  Use the Gold Master pattern in circumstances where you need to verify that there are no unexpected changes.

No, you won’t need an oracle or a tricked-out DeLorean to peer into the future. It turns out you’re already using a great tool for simulating time travel.

The life of a software product is a continual stream of feature additions, enhancements, and even removals. But a great product doesn’t (usually) outshine its competitors because of the sheer number of features, it’s because those features are really useful or work well together. It’s a difficult balance that requires a lot of iteration and experimentation.

For advice on tackling this difficult problem, you might try looking to Batman.
 

Automated unit tests verify that a component is working as expected.  They also serve as a way to understand how code works, though this doesn't always happen by reading tests.  Sometimes understanding comes from tweaking the tests to observe new failures, or rewriting the tests themselves.

If getting together in a room with a small group of software professionals and having deep discussions about design and testing sounds like your idea of a good time, and you’ll be in the Northeast next weekend, I’ve got the perfect conference for you: The Simple Design and Testing Conference.

I was pretty convinced I was having a dream this morning when I read an article about pair programming in The New York Times.  Which seemed an odd place to read about software development practices.

Turns out it wasn't a dream.

Good names make a design easy to understand, help clarify intent, and provide inspiration. Those perfect names can be a real struggle to discover, but finding them can be the missing piece a design needs.

The O’Reilly 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know project provides tips that are short and to the point, usually a page of browser text or less, so you can pick one at random and read it in just a few minutes.  Though if you're like me, you'll have a hard time stopping at just one.

Tom DeMarco, author of Peopleware, has written a reflective article for the latest IEEE Software Magazine entitled: “Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?”

What do statistics on worldwide health and wealth have in common with cyclomatic complexity?