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Oct 04, 2009

Jon rated it:

Code Complete 2... A Review

One-liner: Read it. 3.5 stars

I came into this with super high expectations. Things I'd heard people say: "I make everyone on my team read this." or "Every developer should start with this book". So, I thought, "sweet, a great 'back to basics' book... I can't wait!". I read through this book with a host of colleagues all with quite different experience levels and in different areas of expertise.

It wa More...

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Sep 28, 2009

Jen rated it:

Steve McConnell's Code Complete 2 is a classic piece of literature in Software Development. I joined a book club for reading this book, and the discussions along the way were some of the most valuable I've had. It was very rewarding to me to see many of the pieces of advice given reaffirming my own coding practices and the way things are done here at SEP, but I certainly took some new information away. One of the main lessons taught throughout the book is that code should be easy to understan More...

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May 30, 2011

Василий rated it:

После повторного прочтения данной книги окончательно убеждаюсь в том, что данная книга должны быть прочитана, как минимум раз, каждым развивающимся разработчиком, менеджером связанным с разработкой, и тем, кто так или иначе связан с областью разработки.

Мое мнение может быть предвзятым, так как на момент написания - это единственная книга по разработке, которую я прочитал, но могу сказать, что автору удалось пролить свет на разработку как таковую, и мне, как начинающему разработчику она оче

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Apr 29, 2010

Rick rated it:

When starting my first job out of college, part of the training was to read selected chapters from this book. The way that Steve McConnell presents the topics in story form made the reading effortless and even entertaining. Although I had initially suspected that the book reading was some useless filler task while they found something for me to do, looking back I probably learned more about programming on a team than I did during the first two years of college programming courses.

T More...

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Mar 17, 2009

Alan rated it:

I probably got less out of the book, having worked as a developer for a couple of years out of school, than say, a college student or somebody fresh out. Or maybe dinosaurs that are out of touch and need to get back into the game.

The second half of the book is pretty much a catalog of refactoring techniques. It's definitely geared towards the aforementioned audiences.

McConnell covers a few other topics, related to design, teamwork, testing, and configuration managemen More...

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Feb 10, 2012

Stephanie A. rated it:

This is pretty much a grammar and style book for computer programming. I bought the original version, which is about 20 years old and uses older languages such as C, Pascal, Fortran, Basic, and Ada, but the fundamental ideas of simplifying nested loops, separating complicated routines into smaller ones, etc. are still relevant. McConnell writes very clearly, as you'd expect in a book that's all about writing (code) clearly. Code Complete is great until it gets boring. The sleep-inducing chapters More...

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Aug 08, 2011

Sanjiv added it

It is a nice book but too MS-centric. Some of the things are
going to confuse you if you come from a different environment. For example, it took me a while to realize that the term "magic number" was used for hard-coded constants; in Unix, the magic number is used to identify file type as described in /etc/magic. Similarly, the author did not like the indentation standard use by Gnu. There was something he did not like about Kernighan and Ritchie either Overall, I still think it w More...

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Jun 15, 2011

Brad rated it:

Very comprehensive, well written, mostly current, too long.

I am very glad that I read this book, but I am not sure that I would have been able to get through it all if I wasn't on a "schedule". I think that it could have been distilled down to something half as long, and yet still convey the essence of the vast range of topics.

The code examples, combined with extensive commentary, are used to powerfully convey good vs. bad practice. I do, however, fear that a begi More...

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Nov 13, 2009

Joel rated it:

Steve McConnell's Code Complete is absolutely essential to every software developer. The lessons contained in Code Complete are based on solid, time-tested principles. The time spent reading Code Complete is time spent bettering your career as a developer.

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Jan 12, 2008

Russell rated it:

Purchased this book as a textbook for a Software Engineering class at school. The teacher said he enjoyed it quite a bit and that we weren't going to reference it as much as he'd like (considering the other texts for the class). His comment piqued my interest. Upon finishing the first reading assignment I continued along to the next chapter. Like it so much I began the next and then halted, remembering the other reading I first needed to complete.

So, I finished the other book (Mythical More...

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Aug 29, 2011

Vladimir rated it:

So it’s a #1 must read programming book according to this poll on StackOverflow. That raises quite some expectations, and if you ask me, the book doesn’t really meet them.

I mean, it doesn’t even feel like a proper programming book - it’s written in some “Easy way to quit smoking for dummies” style. Every idea is explained verbosely, then illustrated with some numeric stats, then with a 3D chart, then with some real-life anecdote, then with a reference to a 1973 paper, and finally reite More...

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Jul 15, 2009

Senjutsu rated it:

Not terrible, but not great, this book has a much higher stature among Microsofties than is strictly deserved, and little visibility beyond that group. Says nothing in 960 pages that The Practice of Programming doesn't manage to convey more clearly and succinctly in 267. Ok as a supplement to the latter for those looking for longer justifications for the same recommendations, or those deathly allergic to Unixisms. Pointless otherwise.

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Feb 14, 2011

Andre rated it:

Often regarded as the one book you must read if you care about programming well and I'm beginning to understand...

Only a five chapters in, I can see it's already improving not only my programming skills, but also with how to correctly deal with clients and bosses in order to minimize risk and increase productivity.

More thoughts on it will be posted later.

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Nov 28, 2011

Aaron rated it:

This book was a pretty good read. Most of what is discussed is extremely valuable information. Although with only 5 years of experience I felt like many of the points that Steve brought up were fairly obvious once you've been working as a Software Developer. If you are new to programming, want to move to a more professional level of programming or just plain have plenty of time on your hands this is a great book. However, if you already have a fair amount of experience developing software pr More...

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Mar 12, 2009

Nick rated it:

There's a lot of good stuff in here for new developers, which is why I gave it 3 not 2 stars. I thought some of it was a little dry and I'd already read of many of the practices the book mentions, which is why it didn't score higher with me. That said, it really is a good book for new developers.

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Aug 26, 2011

Jim rated it:

Taking it for what it tries to do, this book is a must-read for anyone pursuing a career as a software engineer. While not perfect, McConnell builds not a reference but a mind set for responsible, sensible development, not just of software but of people who put it together.

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May 30, 2008

Robert rated it:

Excellent book on software development. I read the first version years ago. It was well worth picking up the second version as a refresher. The book covers everything from personal character to how to format a for loop, it's a must read for improving your skills and to help you realize how far you still have to go.

The only problem I have with the book is the formatting. It's a nightmare of little quotes, references and key point icons (with a picture of a key - thanks...) cluttering More...

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Jun 10, 2010

Christophe Keromen rated it:

The best book I read on the subject, ok I didn't read so many :-)
Many advises are advocated using statistics not only personal feeling
The author tries to take the best from each method avoiding religious commitment to one church

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Dec 31, 2011

Nathan rated it:

McConnell uses personal experience along with hard data from many other researchers in industry and academia to show the reader how to write code quickly, efficiently, effectively, and bug-free.

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Jul 10, 2011

Ronald rated it:

This is the must read book for every programmer who want to start their very first career. Steve talks about how to write clean and readable code that will distinguish the good and bad programmer.

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Jan 18, 2008

Jim rated it:

Well, it's definitely long. If you've been programming for a while, and haven't read this (like me), then you'll find it to be a good structured outline of what you're doing already, with quite a few new things sprinkled in.

For a recent grad, I think this book will be filled with lots of information that can help the new grad avoid the gotchas that had to be learned the hard way by other people.

I think Steve McConnell takes a fairly pragmatic approach in this book, in th More...

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Aug 27, 2007

Toby rated it:

This book is a really good examination of low-level design of code. This older version was written before widespread adoption of Java, web development, or object oriented development. However, it's focus on well-designed routines (methods/functions) meant that the meat of the content was still highly useful and actually unencumbered by more hyped up features of more recent programming trends.

The new version, Code Complete Second Edition includes content about newer programming tech More...

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Sep 25, 2011

Derek rated it:

This is were I learned to make well documented code.
I prefer to write code that is modular and easy to follow... ...easy for the next guy if necessary.

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Nov 15, 2009

Andrew is currently reading it

This is probably in the top 5 of every good programmer's list of books that every programmer-to-be should read. I actually keep a copy of this in my bathroom.

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Mar 11, 2010

Danien rated it:

Lots of checklists that theoretically sound good for large teams and projects but the overhead may be too high for smaller projects.

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Aug 06, 2011

Doug rated it:

This book focuses mainly on the coding and style aspects of software engineering. Any book by McConnell is worth the read.

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Nov 10, 2011

Dean rated it:

Classic, of course. A bit long winded. A bit too long... However, required reading for any software engineer.

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Aug 09, 2011

Jarno added it

A classic that every software developer should read. My copy is from 1993, but it is still very relevant.

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Jul 02, 2011

Tom rated it:

Required reading for those that approach software developer as a craftsman would, as an artisan would.

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Dec 28, 2010

Phil is currently reading it

Great tips so far, helps provide a solid framework within which to think about your code and architecture

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

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