Release It! compared to 'Ship It'

[Mike Farnham]

When I read the announcement for the "Release It! Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software", book promotion, I couldn't help of think of another book: "Ship it! A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects".

The author, Jared Richardson, blogged the following: "I believe in building teams, not products." The Ship It! book focuses on getting to the Release 1.0 product. And, the techniques appear to mostly focus on getting people to talk.

How does Release It! compare to this philosophy of "building teams not products"?

Cheers,
Mike

[Edit by Dave to provide meaningful topic]
[ February 13, 2007: Message edited by: David O'Meara ]

[Michael Nygard]

Mike,

Thanks, great question.

Yes, there is a definite synergy between Ship It and Release It. In fact, Jared was one of my reviewers on Release It.

Here's how I see the differences:

Ship It focuses on the dynamics of the team and how to bring the project across the finish line in such a way that the team can sustain itself.

Release It focuses on the design and architecture of the systems, so that you can bring the system across the finish line in such a way that you can sustain it.

I definitely advocate both books!

Cheers,
-Mike