Recommended Readings

• Martin Fowler on the problem of software patents - "... while patents (even software patents) are a good idea in principle, in practice they have turned into an unmitigated disaster and would be better scrapped."
• Discovering Hidden Design, Michael Feathers - When refactoring complex code towards a better design with clearer separation of concerns, it may be sometimes worthwhile to factor out a more-less separated cluster of functionality even if it doesn't do just one thing (and this it is difficult to find a descriptive name for it). Comparing the cost and benefit of this and an "ideal" refactoring (where we get to single-responsibility factors), this one may prove better.
• Martin Fowler: Tradable Quality Hypothesis - Martin argues that we must claim that quality in software development is not tradable (even though we know that certain tradeoffs can be done). The reason is that people are used to quality (in food, clothing, ...) being pretty "tradable" and so it is very hard to persuade them that in the case of software development it is tradable much less (or not at all). And once your manager and customers view quality as tradable, you are doomed. They will force you to trade it for time, features, ... in a proportion that will harm the project (because, as already mentioned, in SW it is much less tradable then in other domains).
• Are estimates worthless?& Magne's response - interesting discussion of the value and cost of estimation and its role in contracting w.r.t. trust - a nice addition to the discussion: Agile not suitable for governmental IT?.
• Generate Test Data with DataFactory - nice java library that generate "random" values of different types and optionally satisfying some constraints - f.ex. first/last name (using built-in or custom list), date (within a range, w.r.t. another date, ...), address (cities, streets etc.), email, random text/word/characters, number. Available at GitHub.