Customer Reviews
If you dont want to be called out at night for a prod issue, reading this book may help - By: Mr. R. Patel, 30 Jun 2010 
If you're a developer, architect or ops engineer, this book is vital reading. As I read it, many of the anti-patterns listed rang home & it was nice to be able to put names to strategies & patterns to solve these "real" issues which never manifest during QA.
If like me, you provide 4th line prod support for apps you've developed, reading this book & practicing it will hopefully give you a good night sleep after your latest release goes live.
Great book and indeed Pragmatic - By: M. Rogers, 19 May 2010 This book is packed with little passages & anecdotes which rang true with my own experiences. The patterns are genuinely useful, & being presentedin this way can be sold to doubting managers more easily. Buy a copy for every ivory-tower architect you know... then beat him around the head with it until unconscious ;)
Real Practical Advice - By: B. Boyle, 25 May 2009 Easy to read with real world experiences yielding practical guidance for the development of production-ready software.
Daring us to do better - By: Kristjan Wager, 07 Mar 2009 If you arein the business of making software systems, odds are that you might have heard about Nygard's book. People have raved about it since it was publishedin 2007.
That being the case, it had been on my to-read list for a while, but without any urgency. Then I went a conference where I heard two sessions with Michael Nygard presenting his ideas. After that, I knew I had to get hold of the book straight away.
Release It! is something as rare as a book which is groundbreaking while stating the obvious.
First of all, Nygard makes the simple point that we (meaning the peoplein the business) are all too focused on making our systems ready to pass QA's tests & not on making ready to go into production. This is hardly news, but it's the dirty little secret of the business. It's not something you're supposed to say out loud. Yet Nygard does that. And not only that, he dares to demand that we do better.
Having committed this heresy, he goes on to explain how we can go around doing that.
He does thatin two ways. First he present us for the anti-patterns which will stop us from having a running systemin production, & then he present us for the patterns which will make it possible to avoid them. Or, if it's not possible to avoid them, to minimize the damage caused by them.
That's another theme of Nygard's book. The insistence that the system will break, & the focus on implementing ways to do damage control & recovery.
The book is not only aimed at programmers, though they should certainly read it, it's also aimed at anyone else involvedin the development, testing, configuration & deployment of the system at a technical level, including people involvedin the planning of those tasks.
As people might have figured by now, I think the hype around the book has been highly warranted, & I think that any person involvedin the field would do well to read the book.
Highly recommended - By: Mark Brinton, 01 Jul 2008 The author's wealth of experience is evident as soon as you start reading. He passes on that experiencein a very enjoyable & readable way, with lots of real world tips & anecdotes.
I get the impression that no matter what design or deployment problems you face, he's already been there & dealt with them, & has lots of practical advice that can really make a difference.
