Code Complete
A couple of months ago, my blog’s personality split in two. On one side, there was the blog of Aaron the Person, the Husband, the Father, the Boring. The kind of person in whom only Mother is really interested. On the other side you have this blog, the blog of Aaron the Engineer.
Now that the split is complete, I have decided to go through all my old posts and determining which should be pulled out of the Aaron the Person blog and put in the Aaron the Engineer blog. As I glanced through all the old posts, I was amazed to find out that I hadn’t posted a review of Code Complete by Steve McConnell. Shame on me!
No software engineer should be allowed to write code unless they have read this book. I’m not kidding. I learned more about writing clean, maintainable code during all phases of the sotware life-cycle by reading this book than during the four years I have spend writing code professionally.
McConnell doesn’t just make stuff up and tell you to follow it. Nope. He cites source after source after source after source. He cites so many sources, you begin to wonder how anybody has the time necessary to read all his source material. The bibliography goes on for 21 pages. It is simply amazing that one man can condense all that knowledge into a single book, but McConnell does an incredible job.
When I finished reading this book, I told myself that I needed to re-read it once a year, so my skills stay fresh. It also inspired me to make sure I am continually educating myself on best practices. I now have a wishlist of about two dozen computer books to read, and a few magazines and journals to which I need to subscribe. McConnell helped teach me how important it is to learn, learn, and learn some more.
Go. Now. Buy this book. Read it. Re-read it. Love it.
Recommendation
