Mark Pearl - Code with the Wisdom of the Crowd

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Code with the Wisdom of the Crowd could not have happened without the support of my wife, Genevere, and my three children, Daniel, Juliet, and Jamie. Im so grateful for your patience and understanding, especially when I had to spend time away from the family to be working on the book.

Many thanks to Tammy Coron for all your help throughout the writing process; your feedback and guidance was invaluable.

Thank you to my technical reviewers for your suggestions and insightsto Allan Stewart, Daniel Irvine, Eric Jutrzenka, Gareth Stephenson, and Janco Wolmaranseach of you contributed something and helped shape the book.

A special thank you to Allan, Eric, and David for taking the time to share their craft with a total stranger. Who would have thought a single day would have such a major impact on how I make software?

Finally, thank you to my original mob: Janco, Theo, Steven, Oz, Gwen, Coenie, Mandla, Lindo, Sandile, and Hendrik. We had a great run together, mobbing with you was so much funthis one is for you.

Welcome to Mob Programmingan exciting, emerging form of collaborative programming. The outcome of effective Mob Programming is great software produced by teams; it has fewer defects, requires fewer key person dependencies, and is more robust, better thought out, and just flows. People all over the world are realizing the benefits of mobbing, and now you can too.

Having helped several teams start mobbing, Ive found there are two big hurdles most teams encounter: the early days, when youre just getting started and still figuring things out, and then a few months later, after the shininess of mobbing has worn off. This book is here to help you get past both of these obstacles to a point where your mob is sustainably humming.

Code with the Wisdom of the Crowd is written for a range of audiences, including:

• Team leads who want to introduce mobbing to their team.

• Software developers who havent tried Mob Programming before or who have previously tried and had a negative experience due to poor execution.

• Coaches who would like to introduce Mob Programming to their development teams.

Because this book takes you on a journey of mobbing, I recommend you read it start to finish and then come back to the sections that apply to where your mob is at that point in their journey.