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Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

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Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#21

Post by gnaritas »

jcmoscon wrote: post #15

On LISP, by Paul Graham. LISP was the second language I learned in college, but only after 6 years programming Java and C# that I came back and really learned LISP. It was when I realized that I was doing everything wrong. For example design patterns exists because OO has serious problems that we don't find in a functional programming language and you only see this when you understand both paradigms.

Design patterns exist because common solutions to problems exist, not because OO has serious problems. I understand both paradigms and Lisp is hardly free of design patterns. Every time you pass a lambda to a higher order function you're using a strategy pattern. If you only see design patterns as problems with OO, you're missing the point of design patterns. All languages have design patterns. Common design pattern in Lisp, with-X macros to deal with scoped resource cleanup.

Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#24

Post by sideshowb »

gnaritas wrote: post #21
jcmoscon wrote: post #15

On LISP, by Paul Graham. LISP was the second language I learned in college, but only after 6 years programming Java and C# that I came back and really learned LISP. It was when I realized that I was doing everything wrong. For example design patterns exists because OO has serious problems that we don't find in a functional programming language and you only see this when you understand both paradigms.

Design patterns exist because common solutions to problems exist, not because OO has serious problems. I understand both paradigms and Lisp is hardly free of design patterns. Every time you pass a lambda to a higher order function you're using a strategy pattern. If you only see design patterns as problems with OO, you're missing the point of design patterns. All languages have design patterns. Common design pattern…

Are Design Patterns really so out of fashion with the youth of today that nobody here mentions Design Patterns as their answer?

Because it is mine, for better or worse. It took me from understanding OO to understanding how to build large systems with OO, writing maintainable code and using proper encapsulation. A much deeper work than Code Complete (though the latter is worth reading too).

I have used functional languages as well (ML, Lisp; not Haskell yet though I think I get what monads are; plus I write a lot of Python, C++, JS in functional style) but I have yet to use them for any project as big. I hope I get the chance to one day. But for now Design Patterns gets my vote.

Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#25

Post by artursapek »

danso wrote: post #19

Of lesser-known books, Avdi Grimm's "Confident Ruby": http://www.confidentruby.com/ Learning Ruby itself was a huge influence to me; hadn't considered that a language should be designed to make programmers "happy", as Matz said. "Confident Ruby" was one of several books that had this human-happiness focus. "Confident" is broken down into patterns, many of which can be found in books like Sandi Metz's POODR, but as a…

Ruby makes programmers happy while they're writing their sexy new code base. It makes them cry when it's time to refactor it.

Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#26

Post by gnaritas »

sideshowb wrote: post #24
gnaritas wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Design patterns exist because common solutions to problems exist, not because OO has serious problems. I understand both paradigms and Lisp is hardly free of design patterns. Every time you pass a lambda to a higher order function you're using a strategy pattern. If you only see design patterns as problems with OO, you're missing the point of design patterns. All languages have design patterns. Common design pattern…

Are Design Patterns really so out of fashion with the youth of today that nobody here mentions Design Patterns as their answer? Because it is mine, for better or worse. It took me from understanding OO to understanding how to build large systems with OO, writing maintainable code and using proper encapsulation. A much deeper work than Code Complete (though the latter is worth reading too). I have used functional lang…

> Are Design Patterns really so out of fashion with the youth of today that nobody here mentions Design Patterns as their answer?

Apparently so; sad.

Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#27

Post by darawk »

DanHulton wrote: post #6

Code Complete, Steve McConnell. http://www.stevemcconnell.com/cc.htm One of the best books on programming style and function, backed up with actual research for the recommendations.

I second this. I read this book in my teens after I had taught myself programming and just been hacking away for a little while. It had never occurred to me to even think about the issues this book was discussing. It really made me think about and appreciate design quality in software.

Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#28

Post by davidmoffatt »

The Little Lisper by Dan Friedman. It is probably 30 years out of publication but I pulled it off of my shelf the other day, reread it, and the next day I noticed that my code had improved. It is a quick read, nothing earth shattering, but you will be amazed by what you have forgotten.

Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#29

Post by ztjio »

It surprised me just how huge the impact was of reading about Flow-based Programming years ago (J Paul Morrison's book, though, his site is probably a sufficient substitute http://www.jpaulmorrison.com/fbp/)

Of course, in recent times, it has become all that much more relevant to me as I began working in data science/engineering space. Even though it's not specifically about code structure for a particular language, it addresses a common flaw in most programming approaches that seem to treat all functionality as a servant of the current context which is strange and silly and not how anything works in physical information processing so why do it in code?

A somewhat common pattern that maps well to FBP is "Railway Oriented Programming." Though FBP in full takes this well beyond simply shooting errors along in sideband to the happy path.

Re: Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?

#30

Post by jjjjjosh »

Hands-down, Practical Object-Oriented Design in Ruby (http://www.poodr.com/) - some of it I don't agree with but it's all wonderfully put-together: clear and concise, with wonderful examples. Much more about OO design than Ruby, non-Rubyists will get 98% of the value out of it that Rubyists would.
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