Matthew Darling’s Reviews > Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction > Status Update

Refactoring: Probably always a good idea. Performance tuning: Maybe not such a good idea.

"My computer science education was excellent, but our education in debugging was sorely lacking." Pretty common situation. Same thing goes for testing. So, this was a good chunk.

Table driven methods was pretty enlightening. The section on general control issues, take it or leave it. The data on quality assurance was impressive, however.

A bit sad that the section on recursion doesn't make any mention to any extra resources on the subject, simply saying "recursion might be good sometimes, maybe?"

On to the chapter on table-driven methods, which will either be completely new to me or just talk about arrays a lot. Assuming they're different from arrays, should be good stuff in there.

The variables section wasn't as bad as you might think. It's more of a reference than a sleep-inducing lecture.

Oh boy, it's time for the 30 page chapter on variable names! Well, I did like the preceding chapters (8-10).

It can't possibly be that bad...

Oh boy, it's time for the 30 page chapter on variable names! Well, I did like the preceding chapters (8-10).

It can't possibly be that bad...

Oh boy, it's time for the 30 page chapter on variable names! Well, I did like the preceding chapters (8-10).

It can't possibly be that bad...

The chapters on routines (or functions, or methods, or what have you) and defensive programming may seem kind of dull to more conscientious programmers. But they're not excessively long, and there were definitely parts that made me think. Assertions are totally new territory, for me, and I'm fond of the idea.