Code Complete, Second Edition

Rating:
Summary: Every Software Engineer Would Benefit
Review:
Every software engineer would benefit from this book! This book shows you how to write code correctly, as you write your application/system, to save time and improve quality/maintainability.

Most developers do not write good code. Most are hacks! If you don't think you have time to read a book like this or that it isn't worth it, you may very well be one of these hacks.


Rating:
Summary: Still a classic
Review: "Code Complete" is a really important book. If nothing else, it's an incredible survey of literature about programming covering the entire history of the field. Every significant study of how programmers do their work is covered in its pages.

There's also an amazing amount of practical advice about everything from code formatting, variable naming and writing control structures, all the way up to assembling and managing a programming team -- and managing your manager, too.

The second edition adds a lot of new examples in Java, and goes lighter on less common languages like Pascal and APL than did the first edition. There are also new sections about agile methods and object orientation, perfectly respectable material, although admittedly not much new or unique there.

Every programmer should be familiar with this book.

Rating:
Summary: Practical guide to a programmer
Review: Great book. One of the true classics of software engineering. Covers the complete landscape of coding. The second edition has been updated to cover Java, C#, Visual Basic. If there is one book you can read which will increase the quality of your code by a thousand fold, then this is the book.

Rating:
Summary: Yet another classic
Review: Have not read the final version, just various chapters released for reader commets. A definite replacement for the first version. All areas have been updated and new chapters on topics such as refactoring.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as the first, but still wothwhile
Review: Having read the first edition many years ago, it was the only book I have ever read a chapter before bed only to think "maybe I will read another...and another..then go to bed", I purchased the second edition recently. Maybe because I have read so many other books since then that this edition failed to grasp my interest as much.

The content has changed considerably, as has some of his opinions of what is considered "best practice". Some of the "new" ones are things I have been doing for years and disagreed with him at the time. Unfortunately, many of the conventions he has adopted have been tainted by the "Java" world, in particular naming, formatting and commenting conventions. Some of these points are only religious in nature, but some, he devotes just two lines to Hungarian notation (the first edition was filled with the virtues of it), he dismisses as out of fashion and continues on his new course. The examples are filled with names which would have been easier to use a prefix than call them all "colourX", he has just adopted a new notation that consists of words rather than abreviations but conveys no further information about the variable. Mind you, he still uses variables called "i" - this is Hungarian in it's simplest form Steve!

Some of his formatting, particularly wrapping onto a second line, makes code become almost impossible to understand by cluttering the left side of an assignment with data from the right side. He then makes a point about making code clear to the eye...

The book is filled with quotes and results from studies done by many companies, I don't know the value of studies on code comprehensionability done in the 80's is that relevant to today, but he uses these to backup most of what he says.

The book contains very comprehensive bibliographies at the end of each chapter and so is a great starting point, browsing through the lists I found many books which I have already read myself. I have to question, with so many quotes and references from others, if this is truly an "original" work. How many of his thoughts are his "own" and how many are just a regurgitation of others.

Having said all this, it is still an excellent book that everyone who considers themselves a "programmer" should read. Well done Steve, I will be waiting for the third edition...maybe you will find "best practices" lie somewhere between the first and second editions.

Rating:
Summary: The best is even better
Review: I don't usually bother with writing reviews, but I just had to for this. I bought and read the first edition when it came out and loved it. Today I was in Borders and saw the second edition on the shelf. I grabbed it and didn't even bother opening it before buying. I didn't want to have to wait to have it shipped by Amazon.

The first edition was one of my top 5 computer books of all time (I have hundreds and get most free being a college prof) and now I'm loving the second edition.

My only regret is that I can only give 5 stars to this book. It's a sure 3 thumbs up out of 2 or 7 out of 5 stars.

BUY IT NOW.

Rating:
Summary: Back To Basics
Review: I experienced many emotions, if that is the right word, whilst reading this book; a knowing smile, a nod, and sometimes shout, of agreement, disagreement and the occasional initial outright rejection.

I read on to find that often, a concept was contradicted by a counter argument, both equally valid, and it was impossible not to learn from each topic, even when an initial thought was along the lines of 'I know about this'. It really is thought provoking and teaches/re-teaches what should be basic principles, the most important of which are to be open minded, willing to learn and to strive for quality.

On top of all that I enjoyed reading it.

I read a fair number of books during the course of a year and have to say this is one of the more useful and I will encourage its reading on my team.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting Read
Review: I never read the first book but I had always heard about how good it was. The 2nd edition is a very good book. A lot of the information contained withing the covers is pure common sense that unfortunatly, most developer probably don't follow. McConnell provides an excellent resource in this book.

Rating:
Summary: Great book!
Review: If every programmer would read even a third of Code Complete, it would make programmer code in this country so much safer.

People need to spend more on training developers and less on firewalls.

This book is a great start.




Rating:
Summary: A great S/W guide got better
Review: The book Pragmatic Programmer by Hunt and Thomas fell to the second spot on my most-frequent "read list" since receiving this new version of Code Complete, though they both serve slightly different goals with overlap.
CC2 is a great one-stop 'place' to go to when you want a great excuse to apply Stephen Covey's 'Sharpen The Saw' principle. This updated version has some great, fun to read and expert instruction on designing from scratch, whether it's OO, writing better routines, psuedocode, nested loops, or at the higher level: agile methods, etc..
His approach of talking to you, the programmer, is ideal: not too much humor, and an easy to read, but professional approach in the way he donates the contents of his brain: i.e. McConnell's lengthy experience in the field.
I read just a couple of paragraphs in a chapter before work one morning, and the advice I picked up saved so much time that same day. And it wasn't even specific to coding instruction. It was a piece of advice on a philosophy on how he personally determines how much upfront design he should settle on before coding.

Books like these are a little hard to muster up motivation once you first buy it and get the book on your shelf. Our motivation to do something comes from the picture in our head, or how something sounds, and at first you can't see how much good it will do to start spending precious time on it, as compared to some brand new book on a specific language that looks impressive to know.
But the truth is: refreshing your overall S/W construction techniques gives you so much more of your life back, because you will have way less bugs and a lot more fun maintaining the high-quality code you are now writing because of CC2.

I mentioned already that he covers OO, but I wanted to emphasize the excellent material he offers in this area. I am now seeing the benefit of measuring the quality of your classes by this guideline: are they true Abstract Data Types. ( rather than just trying to use the syntax that the language provides to its potential).
Great job on a pretty thorough re-write of a S/W development staple.