Clean Coder, The: A Code of Conduct for Professional Programmers (Robert C. Martin Series)

by Robert C. Martin

The only way to prove that your software is easy to change is to make easy changes to it. And when you find that the changes aren’t as easy as you thought, you refine the design so that the next change is easier.

This philosophy is sometimes called merciless refactoring. I call it “the Boy Scout rule”: Always check in a module cleaner than when you checked it out. Always make some random act of kindness to the code whenever you see it.

You should plan on working 60 hours per week. The first 40 are for your employer. The remaining 20 are for you. During this remaining 20 hours you should be reading, practicing, learning, and otherwise enhancing your career. I can hear you thinking: “But what about my family?

Here is a minimal list of the things that every software professional should be conversant with: • Design patterns. You ought to be able to describe all 24 patterns in the GOF book and have a working knowledge of many of the patterns in the POSA books. • Design principles. You should know the SOLID principles and have a good understanding of the component principles. • Methods. You should understand XP, Scrum, Lean, Kanban, Waterfall, Structured Analysis, and Structured Design. • Disciplines. You should practice TDD, Object-Oriented design, Structured Programming, Continuous Integration, and Pair Programming. • Artifacts: You should know how to use: UML, DFDs, Structure Charts, Petri Nets, State Transition Diagrams and Tables, flow charts, and decision tables.