Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship (Robert C. Martin Series) | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert C. Martin
Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR
Category: Book
List Price: $42.99
Buy New: $30.86
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 7778
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 464
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6.9 x 1.1
ISBN: 0132350882
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.1
EAN: 9780132350884
Publication Date: August 11, 2008
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new book delivered from the UK in 10-14 days.
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Product Description
Even bad code can function. But if code isn’t clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Noted software expert Robert C. Martin presents a revolutionary paradigm with Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship. Martin has teamed up with his colleagues from Object Mentor to distill their best agile practice of cleaning code “on the fly” into a book that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman and make you a better programmer?but only if you work at it.
What kind of work will you be doing? You’ll be reading code?lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what’s right about that code, and what’s wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft.
Clean Code is divided into three parts. The first describes the principles, patterns, and practices of writing clean code. The second part consists of several case studies of increasing complexity. Each case study is an exercise in cleaning up code?of transforming a code base that has some problems into one that is sound and efficient. The third part is the payoff: a single chapter containing a list of heuristics and “smells” gathered while creating the case studies. The result is a knowledge base that describes the way we think when we write, read, and clean code.
Readers will come away from this book understanding
- How to tell the difference between good and bad code
- How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code
- How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes
- How to format code for maximum readability
- How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic
- How to unit test and practice test-driven development
This book is a must for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst with an interest in producing better code.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 A must-buy for object-oriented developers August 21, 2008
Matthew R. Heusser
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
When most people hear the term "bad writing" they understand the term: Confusing, inconsistent, rambling, big words used incorrectly.
In fact, we have lots and lots of educational programs designed to teach grammar, composition, journalism, and fiction. Master's Degrees in the subject, even.
But for software development we seemed obsessed with "architecture" (whatever that means), process and patterns.
In this book, Bob Martin takes a specific stab at what good code looks like. He provides rules, examples, and even sample transformations.
It is not an easy book. If you are a new developer, you can invest a lot of time and energy into really absorbing the concepts and practicing them yourself. If you are more senior, you may disagree, you may struggle, you may toss the book in a corner and yell at it ...
But then you'll pick it back up again. And you will be a better developer for it.
One thing that I struggle with about the traditional CS cirricula is that so little attention is spent on maintenance, which is the vast majority of actual development time. This book presents an aesthetic and the skills to write maintainable code. If you teach software development, you'll want to use this book in your courses.
Student, Journeyman, Master, or Instructor - A book like this belongs on your bookshelf. Follow the advice in it, or have an explanation why not - either way you'll be a strong developer.
Of course, there are other books in this area. What struck me about this one is the quality of the writing; it is truly engaging and -- a little inspiring. That quality is so rare in technical books that I give this one five stars.
Applying the Boy Scout Rule... September 23, 2008
Edelmiro Fuentes (Switzerland)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
When you do code maintenance, you can really "love" or "hate" a person that you do not even know just by the code he or she has written. Messy code almost always goes hand in hand with lower productivity, lower motivation, and a higher number of bugs. In the first chapter, Robert C. Martin presents in a very instructive way, the opinion from very well-known personalities about what "clean code" is, and also suggests we apply the Boy Scout Rule (Leave the campground cleaner that you found it) to our code. The following chapters present practical advice about how to do this cleaning (or even better, how to avoid the mess in the first place).
The suggestions presented in the book (meaningful names, pertinence of comments, code formatting, etc) may sound very familiar to any experienced programmer but they are presented with such a level of detail and with very illustrative examples that it is almost impossible not to learn valuable things chapter by chapter. All the examples are in Java, but the guidelines they illustrate can be applied, in most of the cases, to other languages.
The most challenging chapter to read (but also a very valuable one) was the Refactoring of the class SerialDate (from the JCommon library). It is a real-life example and the author shows step-by-step what it takes to do refactoring. The last chapter, "Smells and Heuristics" makes a very good closure presenting in categories and in a condensed way, potential problems and suggested ways to solve/mitigate them.
I enjoyed reading this book and after finishing it, I decided to apply the Boy Scout Rule. I took a module written in a procedural language and not only managed to improve the clarity of the code, but also reduced the number of lines from more than 1,100 to 650. The next person to touch this code will certainly be happy to deal with cleaner code!
Instant Classic October 11, 2008
bub hub
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Books like Clean Code are much more worthwhile than any "Learn the latest hyped technology API now!" book. Clean Code will never be outdated while specific technology books have a shelf life of six months to two years.
Whatever language or API you are working in, you will find solid advice in Clean Code on how to write code that is effective and that you can take pride in.
You may disagree with some of Martin's specific advice, but you will still learn a lot by understanding his reasoning for a particular practice.
Bob Martin is a wonderful writer, which is a rarity in the technical book field. His prose is as concise and effective in communicating his thoughts as the code that you will write if you take the time to learn from the master.
Great Book For Sharpening Your Code October 12, 2008
Lee Thornton (Fort Lauderdale)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a must have for anyone that wants to write better code.
I used it on a recent project and another programmer said quote "many parts of your code are sophisticated in a manner that makes me admire you."
The extra tools that this book gave me helped my already good code look admirable.
A Keeper That I Highly Recommend November 26, 2008
Michael Finney (USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The software development industry is always maturing. The craft of coding is always advancing.
The book starts with a great manifesto-ish cry for clean code and carries the reader through things to consider. Just reading 2 chapters got me to change the way I code. A book club got started where I work due to this book. It's that good.
This book provides an up-to-date view of what works really well when coding / creating software solutions. This view is supported by a foundation of experience and best practices that have evolved over the years.
What used to be great in the past is now refined and sometimes even backwards of what was once done. In those mind-jarring moments, an explanation is given in the book which really helps one see why they suggest what they do.
The authors clearly have experience which they share in a clear and easy to understand manner.
I highly recommend the book.
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