Steve McConnell
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Steve McConnell
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Re: Steve McConnell
#2I loved reading Steve McConnell's books when I was starting out, especially Code Complete and I feel that book made me a better programmer.
Having read it a few times since I think it falls into the same group of books as Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, and the Pragmatic Programmer where the earlier in your career you read it, the more you'll get from it.
Reading these books after 20 years of programming I found that I really struggled to find anything useful to take away from them.
It's not that these books are bad, or out of date. It's more that they exposed some new ideas at the time that, to the books credit, have been picked up and made mainstream or basic/required knowledge for the working programmer
Re: Steve McConnell
#3I loved reading Steve McConnell's books when I was starting out, especially Code Complete and I feel that book made me a better programmer. Having read it a few times since I think it falls into the same group of books as Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, and the Pragmatic Programmer where the earlier in your career you read it, the more you'll get from it. Reading these books after 20 years of programming I found that…
> It's not that these books are bad, or out of date. It's more that they exposed some new ideas at the time that, to the books credit, have been picked up and made mainstream or basic/required knowledge for the working programmer
What books do you recommend though to get novice (or not so novice) programmers up to speed? IMO there is a lack of modern literature and general introductory material to the kind of wisdom you otherwise only get after decade(s) of software development (if at all, for quite a number of people).
A recent one I liked is “A Philosophy of Software Design”, but it only covers so much ground, and some of its advice requires further qualification.
Re: Steve McConnell
#4I loved reading Steve McConnell's books when I was starting out, especially Code Complete and I feel that book made me a better programmer. Having read it a few times since I think it falls into the same group of books as Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, and the Pragmatic Programmer where the earlier in your career you read it, the more you'll get from it. Reading these books after 20 years of programming I found that…
I totally agree. Code Complete was my road map to a new field, full of recommendations for other books to read. I gave away my first two copies of the first edition, and eventually bought the second edition. It didn't have the same magic. I've looked for it in other books, like The Pragmatic Programmer, The Practice of Programming, and others, but it's like The Sixth Sense (or The Crying Game or The Usual Suspects): you can only see it for the first time once.
Re: Steve McConnell
#5I loved reading Steve McConnell's books when I was starting out, especially Code Complete and I feel that book made me a better programmer. Having read it a few times since I think it falls into the same group of books as Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, and the Pragmatic Programmer where the earlier in your career you read it, the more you'll get from it. Reading these books after 20 years of programming I found that…
Code Complete is a great book
It is not overly opinionated, it is direct, it tries to support the statements it makes.
It does not tell you a great story or tries to play you. It is what it is. And still it's a great reference.
It's the anti-Uncle Bob, which tries to manipulate you and convince you of his way being the best way.
Re: Steve McConnell
#6I can't understate how important Steve McConnell's writings have been to my software career. Many years ago I was just a young developer completely immersed in tech and algorithms, but I was frustrated that the teams I was involved with weren't better at making software. Code Complete, Software Project Survival Guide, and his other writings really helped me appreciate how important craftsmanship, design, process, and forethought are to a project's success.
I've never been under the impression that he figured it all out on their own, or that they captured the end-all, be-all of how to make software. Some of the things he wrote about have evolved tremendously over the years. But I still get incredible value of revisiting those books and reinforcing better engineering practices and habits he evangelizes.
Re: Steve McConnell
#7I loved reading Steve McConnell's books when I was starting out, especially Code Complete and I feel that book made me a better programmer. Having read it a few times since I think it falls into the same group of books as Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, and the Pragmatic Programmer where the earlier in your career you read it, the more you'll get from it. Reading these books after 20 years of programming I found that…
Code Complete is a great book It is not overly opinionated, it is direct, it tries to support the statements it makes. It does not tell you a great story or tries to play you. It is what it is. And still it's a great reference. It's the anti-Uncle Bob, which tries to manipulate you and convince you of his way being the best way.
> It is not overly opinionated, it is direct, it tries to support the statements it makes.
Totally. I appreciated that he actually cited actual studies of commercial software projects, such comparisons of defects found in code reviews vs tests or defects vs function length.
Re: Steve McConnell
#8Are there any other author's similar to Steve McConnel?
Someone who writes a book with pragmatic advice, based on real life research, focused on delivering projects quickly, on time, and with few defects?
Instead it feels like almost all the writing in software is evangelizing.
Re: Steve McConnell
#9I loved reading Steve McConnell's books when I was starting out, especially Code Complete and I feel that book made me a better programmer. Having read it a few times since I think it falls into the same group of books as Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, and the Pragmatic Programmer where the earlier in your career you read it, the more you'll get from it. Reading these books after 20 years of programming I found that…
Same. Once I started as a back-end dev, a mentor gave me his copy. I still have it, but have passed on v2 copies a couple of times.
Re: Steve McConnell
#10I loved reading Steve McConnell's books when I was starting out, especially Code Complete and I feel that book made me a better programmer. Having read it a few times since I think it falls into the same group of books as Mythical Man Month, Peopleware, and the Pragmatic Programmer where the earlier in your career you read it, the more you'll get from it. Reading these books after 20 years of programming I found that…
Totally agree, and had the thought this somehow is what happened to Sun Microsystems : what was special about their unixes was so successful, and reincarnated largely with updates in Linux, that it's the current norm. Similarly for NeXT.