Classic Coding Tome Updated

Tim Halloran writes "Steve McConnell has updated his book 'Code Complete' a 960 page language agnostic tome about code construction. This is the best book of its type I've ever encountered and the update is welcome (as the first edition is over a decade old...I suddenly feel as I'm getting old :-). More information, and a sample chapter are here. As a programming team lead I have provided this book to team members to get them critically thinking about how they write code."

Comments

Software Project Survival Guide

[Anonymous Coward]

I can also strongly recommend McConnell's Software Project Survival Guide (amazon link). I think all software team leaders and project managers should read this book as it packs a lot into a small number of pages. Amazon link: Software Project Survival Guide

Code Complete

[kabz]

This book is the best programming book I have ever read.

I believe that my own productivity increased by about 50% at least after reading it.

Code Complete answers many of the questions that nag the working programmer, and busts through much of the BS that people spout about programming.

The book covers a huge range of material, from code formatting and style, to how to build teams. Clue: don't put all the programmers no one else wants in a team to build an important project ;-)

The writing style is friendly and peppered with hilarious case studies such as 'Escape from Gilligan's Island', where the same mistakes happen over and over again.

Everyone who has worked on large programming projects will recognise some of these anecdotes. In one case I watched from start to finish as an 'experienced consultant' ruined a perfectly good project with secrecy over his bad and undocumented code. All the warning signs were there. If the manager had read this book, a programming catastrophe might have been averted.

I have bought this book a few times, and given it to management in-duh-viduals to read. Sometimes it helped.

If you are a programmer or a manager, or just interested in software, buy this book and read it. I guarantee you will learn something.