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The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

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Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#81

Post by [deleted] »

jasode wrote: post #30
hbex5 wrote: post #3

Ah, the good old Design Patterns book, responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, unreadable, hard to maintain Java code than anything else before or since.

>, the good old Design Patterns book, responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, This is a misunderstanding of the DP book. It would be similar to saying that the existence of TVTropes.com is responsible for terrible scripts of tv shows and movies. Or, the existence of the Oxford English Dictionary is responsible for bad novels and useless documentation. The DP book is a catalog (to gain awareness) and not a che…

[deleted]

Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#82

Post by iak8god »

jasode wrote: post #30
hbex5 wrote: post #3

Ah, the good old Design Patterns book, responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, unreadable, hard to maintain Java code than anything else before or since.

>, the good old Design Patterns book, responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, This is a misunderstanding of the DP book. It would be similar to saying that the existence of TVTropes.com is responsible for terrible scripts of tv shows and movies. Or, the existence of the Oxford English Dictionary is responsible for bad novels and useless documentation. The DP book is a catalog (to gain awareness) and not a che…

> This is a misunderstanding of the DP book.

That may be, but it's a very common misunderstanding of the book by junior developers who read the book as a list of recipes to use anywhere they might be applicable.

Is it the book's fault that it's understood this way? I don't know. Regardless, the book + this persistent understanding and use of it are, as grabcocque says, "responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, unreadable, hard to maintain Java code than anything else before or since."

Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#84

Post by lkozma »

jasode wrote: post #30
hbex5 wrote: post #3

Ah, the good old Design Patterns book, responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, unreadable, hard to maintain Java code than anything else before or since.

>, the good old Design Patterns book, responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, This is a misunderstanding of the DP book. It would be similar to saying that the existence of TVTropes.com is responsible for terrible scripts of tv shows and movies. Or, the existence of the Oxford English Dictionary is responsible for bad novels and useless documentation. The DP book is a catalog (to gain awareness) and not a che…

Still, the original architecture "Design Patterns" book by Alexander (which this book is supposed to be the software analogy of) discusses "good practices", emphatically recommended for architects, city planners, etc. So it is maybe not that far-fetched to interpret these patterns as recommendations too.

Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#85

Post by henrik_w »

gcp wrote: post #69
LoSboccacc wrote: post #62

too much hard coding books imho. 'the design of everyday thing' and 'don't make me think' should be read more.

the design of everyday thing I've seen that recommended many times but it's a terrible book, IMHO. (I don't remember the specifics why, but vaguely remember the author waffles around without any real points).

I agree. I was fairly interesting, but not as good as it is made out to be.

Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#86

Post by ajmurmann »

JimDabell wrote: post #22
hbex5 wrote: post #3

Ah, the good old Design Patterns book, responsible for more atrocious over-abstracted, unreadable, hard to maintain Java code than anything else before or since.

I don't think that's fair. The driving point of that book was that developers needed a higher level language to talk about these patterns than simply at the code level, and showed people how to put together a vocabulary. Yes, it came with a library of sample patterns useful for Java developers, but they weren't egregious examples, nor were they the main point of the book. They were just taken to an extreme by people…

I think it's not fair to the authors. As you say they are clear about the patterns being examples. However, there seems to be something about the book or maybe patterns in general that make it seemingly impossible for many developers to not look for use cases of these patterns and start using them in cases that don't quite match. I lead a book club at a post employer where we read the GoF. I constantly emphasized that these are examples of how we might reason about OOP and that they are inappropriate more often than not even though you think they are a fit. Yet, of course some people started suggesting them frequently. I think the problem might be that the first part is a support quick read and then you spend a huge amount of time reading the catalog. Once you understand them, you see how nice the patterns are on their own and you want to use them. They are pretty and you've spent time learning them. So it's only natural. It's a beautiful mental trap.

Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#87

Post by clock_tower »

metaobject wrote: post #67
amelius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You forgot to wrap your comment in a Factory class.

Why stop there? Why not a CommentFactoryFactory?

After all, software factories give you interchangeable parts, and let you reuse your code wherever you want!

Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#88

Post by crispyambulance »

moron4hire wrote: post #39

I wonder how many people actually read the books they were suggesting. Like here on HN, Art of Computer Programming gets mentioned a lot. But I've not met anyone who has actually read it. And I own a copy. It's so hard of a read that I am just going to assume anyone who says they did is either lying or Donald Knuth. I'm suspect of books as a means of information conveyance. They make great mediums for narratives, but…

yep.

There's something to be said for reading "a great book" from cover to cover. It is really an investment of time, effort and discipline over many days.

I think people (and I include myself) buy such books often with an aspirational intent, to spend that "perfect" weekend or weekends deeply ensconced in the subject matter and coming out of the reading as a different, better and more skilled person. It never happens that way, of course. We're just trying to re-live some past time as students where the world was an oyster of knowledge. For the most part memories of those days are grossly inaccurate, merely softened into nostalgia by the passage of time.

In reality, many of us behave like monkeys continually zapped by shock-collars just trying to keep up with shit that never works right and always living in a profound deficit of knowledge, while drowning in information.

Still, its good to have books, and worthwhile to take insane measures to get alone-time to read them. The short practical ones are best. Comprehensive reference books are good too because you can read just what you need while ducking from life's flying shit.

Re: The most mentioned books on Stack Overflow

#89

Post by SquareWheel »

You're violating the terms of Amazon's associate program by including affiliate links without notice.

>"You must clearly state the following on your Site or any other location where Amazon may authorize your display or other use of Content: “We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.”"

https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/help/operating/agreemen...

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