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Steve McConnell

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Re: Steve McConnell

#31

Post by alfiedotwtf »

layer8 wrote: post #3
chollida1 wrote: post #2

I 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 It's not that these books are bad, or out of date.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…

Pragmatic Programmer, Art of Unix Programming, and Code Complete (in that order because of page count) are the books that I recommend these days to junior devs

Re: Steve McConnell

#32

Post by pklee »

JamesBarney wrote: post #8

Are 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.

I would say Scott Ambler. His book "building object applications that work" was amazing and it helped me understand how to design systems

Re: Steve McConnell

#33

Post by arduanika »

Myto wrote: post #13
trentnix wrote: post #6

I 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.

Most of us couldn't care less. Or could we? I forget which.

Re: Steve McConnell

#34

Post by RickJWagner »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I 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 still have my copy of Code Complete 2, and considered it a huge boost as well.

I've got to remember to revisit it soon.

Re: Steve McConnell

#35

Post by nocman »

arduanika wrote: post #33
Myto wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean overstate. For some reason, I've been noticing this mistake more and more lately.

Most of us couldn't care less. Or could we? I forget which.

OK, I'll bite. :-D

If you say you "couldn't care less" then you don't care at all, and that's what you are trying to point out (This is the correct version of the phrase, for how it is used in every case I can think of).

Saying you "could care less", means you do care, at least a little (as Weird Al points out in the "Word Crimes" song). Again, in the places where I hear people use one of these phrases, they always mean they don't care at all, and are trying to emphasize that.

Only "I couldn't care less" makes sense for that meaning.

Re: Steve McConnell

#36

Post by zo1 »

jaaron wrote: post #21

I've been debating on getting my team of engineers a book as a gift, with Code Complete or Pragmatic Programmer as high on the list. Trouble is, as others noted, they're best when you're starting out and less helpful later in your career. Does anyone have any books they recommend for senior engineers (approx 10 years experience)? Perhaps it's harder to recommend one book because by that time generalized knowledge sho…

I would highly recommend Refactoring by Martin Fowler. Out of all the books I've read and been exposed to, that one stuck with me the most over the years.

Re: Steve McConnell

#37

Post by pbourke »

specialist wrote: post #18
trentnix wrote: post #6

I 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.

Dan’s writing is really informative. I also really admire the way that he uses Twitter. I’ll often see a recent tweet from him that is part of a long running topic thread that he appends to when he has something new to say.

Re: Steve McConnell

#38

Post by blub »

JamesBarney wrote: post #8

Are 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.

I guess "The leprechauns of software engineering" by Bossavit would fit. I've only read the free chapter myself though :-)

Re: Steve McConnell

#39

Post by mindcrime »

nocman wrote: post #35
arduanika wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of us couldn't care less. Or could we? I forget which.

OK, I'll bite. :-D If you say you "couldn't care less" then you don't care at all, and that's what you are trying to point out (This is the correct version of the phrase, for how it is used in every case I can think of). Saying you "could care less", means you do care, at least a little (as Weird Al points out in the "Word Crimes" song). Again, in the places where I hear people use one of these phrases, they always m…

That's all true, but I would argue that in practice, the colloquial meaning of "I could care less" and "I couldn't care less" have become the same through usage. Much in the same sense as how "literally" came to mean "figuratively" through misuse, to the point that at least some dictionaries now contain an entry for "literally" that refers to the sense here it mean "figuratively". #headexplode

Re: Steve McConnell

#40

Post by bennysonething »

x87678r wrote: post #19
chollida1 wrote: post #2

I 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…

For me code complete helped me write decent code around these things. No framework will write your business logic. As an asidev there's a really stand out section called Table Driven Methods, he shows how to go from nested if hell to so simple it's mind boggling. Also on the way he detours into the OO approach which doesn't help simplify things at all. I've never seen anything like this advice anywhere else. Also for beginners just explaining how to name functions and variables is great. In fact I worked with a so called senior dev who was naming things terribly.
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