Helen Mary’s Reviews > Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction > Status Update

"The single biggest way to improve both the quality of your code and your productivity is to reuse good code...Many algorithms have already been invented, tested, discussed in the trade literature, reviewed, and improved... take a few minutes to look through the code that's already been written and make sure you're not doing more work than necessary."

“In the Mars Pathfinder, for example, engineers left some of the debug code in by design. An error occurred after the Pathfinder had landed. By using the debug aids that had been left in, engineers at JPL were able to diagnose the problem and upload revised code to the Pathfinder, and the Pathfinder completed its mission perfectly (March 1999).”

“In defensive programming, the main idea is that if a routine is passed bad data, it won't be hurt, even if the bad data is another routine's fault. More generally, it's the recognition that programs will have problems and modifications, and that a smart programmer will develop code accordingly.” very nice and dense resource.

Good stuff. A bit dense but doable.