One of the best (if not the best) books for developers.
Steve McConnell
11–20 of 42 posts
Re: Steve McConnell
#12Are 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.
Good question.
Yes. Old but gold. Brian Kernighan. Jon Bentley. Google them and their books.
Re: Steve McConnell
#13I 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, a…
You mean overstate.
For some reason, I've been noticing this mistake more and more lately.
Re: Steve McConnell
#14I 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.
What books of Bob's do you think manipulate you? Specifically the books, rather than blog posts or tweets.
Re: Steve McConnell
#15I was surprised to see no mention of "Software Estimation" which I found to be a useful, if dry, book when I was struggling with how to estimate software in a better fashion.
Re: Steve McConnell
#16I 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.
FWIW, one useful tidbit from Uncle Bob that I keep thinking about is how the number of working programmers has doubled every five years.
http://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2014/06/20/MyLawn.html
That insight helped me calm down quite a bit. Because noobs are being produced faster than best practices can percolate. Per Mark Twain's quip about lies racing half-way around the world before truth can get its pants on, every generation thinking they invented sex, and how people are generally emotionally attached to their first notions (no matter how wrong).
(So if your introduction to computing is thru Python, PHP, JavaScript or whatever, it's super hard to see their flaws, or to appreciate what their precedents were trying to achieve.)
Re: Steve McConnell
#17Are 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.
You'll find many in his bibliography. Start with those, see who cites them, and McConnell.
Re: Steve McConnell
#18I 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, a…
Ya. I loved Code Complete v1. Loved it. Such a great snapshot of a period in time.
Mostly, Code Complete is a model for how to think about thinking, a self examination, how to do introspection.
A current superior example of this strategy is Dan Luu. IMHO.
Re: Steve McConnell
#19I 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 loved code complete and it made me a better programmer and for a while everything was great. Then along came complicated frameworks, multiple languages, the chaotic HTML/JS/CSS world, k8s, yaml, dependency injection, functional and OO mixed together and it feels like Code Complete is too naive in this crazy new world. Most of the normal world seems terrible to me.
I wonder what Steve would think of it. I didnt even know about "More Effective Agile", maybe it'll tell me.
Re: Steve McConnell
#20I 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, a…
You mean overstate. For some reason, I've been noticing this mistake more and more lately.
Yep. That's what I was thinking, but not what I wrote. Sincerely thanks for pointing that out.