Master developer Neal Ford not only offers advice on the mechanism of productivity - how to work smarter, spurn interruptions, get the most out of your computer, and avoid repetition - he also details valuable practices that will help you avoid common traps, improve your code, and become more valuable to your team. You will learn to: Write tests before you write code Manage the life cycle of your objects fastidiously Build only what you need now, not what you might need it later Apply ancient philosophies to software development Question authority, rather than blindly follow the standard Hard to make things easier and impossible things possible through meta-programming Make sure all the code in the method is at the same level of abstraction Select the right editor and assemble the best tools for the job This is not theory, but the fruit of real-world experience Application Architect at Ford as a global IT consultancy ThoughtWorks.