Code Complete

The best coding book I ever read, I've even bought copies for friends & family. It will teach you how to code like a pro, qualifying you for higher-level programming jobs even with less years of experience. Hopefully the latest edition has some web programming examples too, but that's a detail.

If you've had to struggle through maintaining code writtenby others who haven't a clue about how to name functionsor variables, this book is a great way to point them inthe right direction. I'm a Computer Science major whohas programmed professionally for 20 years, and this bookreally polished my skills. If Steve's guidelines are followed,readable code is the result that requires very few commentsto be understandable. This book was strongly recommendedreading at my previous job and rightly so.

Dated material and most of it should be obvious without saying.

Easy to understand. Good book.

I don't particularly enjoy reading thick books unless they are of reference type. This is a pretty thick book for the subject but overall it is worth it because it can be used as a reference tool.The examples are very light on object oriented content and heavy on procedural language examples such a 'C'. There is no Java (didn't exist) and the tools noted are definatly of an older generation.However this is an excellent read and should be on everyone's "...on a slow rainy day I would do this..." list.

Still one of the best books on coding practice

McConnell does just an excellent job explaining much of the rationale behind some Good Things when writing procedural code. I'm an RPG programmer and learnt many good things.Recommended!

As an experienced but informally educated programmer, I'm always on the look-out for basic information I may have missed over the years. I purchased "Code Complete" based on the Amazon reviews, which almost unanimously suggested this was a vital addition to any serious programmer's library.That might have been true back in 1993, when the book was published. In 2002, "Complete" reads like a repair manual for Connestoga wagons -- an historical curiosity, with little practical use for the modern professional. (At least half the code examples are in Pascal; how many companies code in Pascal these days?) Most telling is the book's brief nod to Object-Oriented Programming as an up-and-coming technique for good programming practices; a slightly more modern treatment would have *focused* on OOP, to far better effect.Perhaps I'm just annoyed at wasting my money on a primer, when what I wanted was an information-dense manual. However, if you're in 4th grade and learning BASIC, "Code Complete" might actually help to improve your marks a level or two.