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Best development book I've read, has no code in it

arasatasaygin.com

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Re: Best development book I've read, has no code in it

#71

Post by henrik_w »

DavidWoof wrote: post #36
sker wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you (or anyone else) read Code Complete? If so, how do you feel about it? I started reading it because everyone recommended it, but I stopped at page 100 or so, because I felt it was getting no where.

Code Complete was overwhelmingly the most influential programming book I've ever read. But it's been around for 20 years, and much of the material has now been rehashed in many other books, videos, forums, blog posts, etc. I think that's what other posters are getting at when they say it's just common sense: this kind of thing is everywhere now. Much of the book is spent making arguments for and providing evidence fo…

Even if a lot of the ideas are also present elsewhere, I still think it is a great book, especially the parts on how to actually write code. For example the chapters on naming, code lay-out, conditionals and methods/functions. I don't know of any other book that covers that as well as Code Complete does.

It is a thick book. But you can still learn a lot even if you don't read it cover to cover. Even if it only makes you a better developer by 0.5%, isn't that still worth it?

My full review of it is here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R269BBARXH1V6R/

Re: Best development book I've read, has no code in it

#72

Post by kh_hk »

cpayne wrote: post #29
kh_hk wrote: post #3

I am sorry, but for me that book was a no. It just felt like a self help book, but for programmers, which is kind of ok if you are feeling any sort of personal trouble in the field. Not that this is not already told on the back cover, but no, I would not call this book the best development book. I did not buy it, instead, it was the result of participating in a local dev Google something, but it really surprised me h…

You didn't buy it, but the book is full of bullshit? Did you at least read it?

It was a gift for participating in a local Google event, sorry if it wasn't clear enough. By not 'buying it' I wanted to highlight that my opinion on the comment would be inherently negative, as I am not in the target audience of the book (as in, if in a store, I would not buy it).

Yes, I have read it. It is not a terrible book, heck, it might be good for what it is meant to be (guidance for disoriented developers), but it is far away from being the best development book, and thus should not be called what it is not.

Re: Best development book I've read, has no code in it

#77

Post by nickik »

mark_h wrote: post #17
the_cat_kittles wrote: post #15

I've found woodworking to be an incredible analogy (and also contrast) to software dev. The guy at http://woodgears.ca/ was formerly a software engineer, and I find it interesting how this influences he approaches woodworking.

There was a talk at Clojure/conj by Tim Ewald on just that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShEez0JkOFw "Programming with hand tools" Lots of conference reviews nominated it in their favourite talks too.

I want to agree. Watched this just yesterday and really, really liked it. Its a bit slow in the beginning and but it really ties to getter in the end. Better then I first thought.

Its a really important point and I often have trouble explaining this to people, now thanks to this talk I have a much clear handle on what the point is.

It can be used when arguing things like ORMs and things like that.

Re: Best development book I've read, has no code in it

#78

Post by anaphor »

kawsper wrote: post #75
arasatasaygin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Added to my reading list.

You might want to add "Founders at Work" to that list as well. It is by the same author.

Founders at Work is by Jessica Livingston (of ycombinator fame) and Coders at Work is by Peter Seibel (of Practical Common Lisp fame, who took inspiration from Founders at Work).

Re: Best development book I've read, has no code in it

#79

Post by henrik_w »

vl wrote: post #69
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #19

Try "Peopleware" from DeMarco and Lister: http://www.amazon.com/Peopleware-Productive-Projects-Teams-3...

3rd edition is out! Great news! Time to re-read. Now instead of looking for my second edition, I'll spend tonight debating if I should get paper, or Kindle version, or both. :) Speaking of influential books, Peopleware and Mythical Man-month are the most influential software books for me.

Agreed. The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks is another great book. It is famous for Brooks's law: "adding people to a late project makes it later".

But for me, even better with that book was one page at the end of chapter one, entitled The Joys of the Craft. There, Brooks described what's so great about programming. I really loved that part, and wrote a blog post about it: http://henrikwarne.com/2012/06/02/why-i-love-coding/

Re: Best development book I've read, has no code in it

#80

Post by yeahbutbut »

dschiptsov wrote: post #65

It is a common misconception that to be programmer one should read lots of books. It is as wrong as to say that in order to learn to swim or ride a bicycle one should read books instead of trying. Only code by the very best people (Abelson & Sussman, Norvig, PG, Armstrong, Marlow, Odersky) is worth reading. Common crap found on blogs (especially about Haskell or Lisp) or github (especially PHP and Ruby code) does onl…

There is some value in being able to read non-expert code, you're more likely to run into non-expert code during your day to day job. Someone like Abelson, or Armstrong, will write clearer almost effortless code. Someone at work may spend a thousand lines trying to munge an associative array out of a database result. You have to be able to read both.
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