Customer Reviews:
 A "must read" for software development professionals August 27, 2007
A. Vander Meulen (Boston, MA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I encountered the first edition of this book back in the mid 1990's. The opinion I had of it at that time has not changed: Steve McConnell's "Code Complete" is a "must read" book for anyone developing or maintaining software, particularly those in senior and leadership roles - Sr. and Lead Developers, Software Architects, Managers, etc.
"Code Complete" is a distillation of years of experience on Mr. McConnell's part, backed up with research and references from a wide variety of sources, including research papers, journal articles and books. His style is easy to read, he focuses on the practical aspects of the development process, presenting the pros/cons and applicability of each of his recommendations in a solution-focused manner. This isn't a book marketing some theory of what's best, but really concentrates on what works, what doesn't, and how to excel as a software development professional. His points and recommendations are clear and well-supported - and will often be eye-opening material for the reader, no matter how experienced they are in this industry.
"Code Complete" focuses on software development as a discipline, and encourages the reader to think of it as a major component of the overall software development process, including not only the initial specification / design / build / test and deploy cycle, but designing and building the code to enhance its long term "maintainability" and "enhancability". --- The initial deployment of an application is only the first step in its lifecycle: Mr. McConnell makes the strong case that designing and building an application without concern for its long term impact and viability is an expensive mistake.
It's been so long snce I read the first editon "Code Complete" that I cannot compare or contrast the two, but I can say that reading this edition has reinforced and expanded-on many of the practices I adopted years ago as a result of reading this volume and Rapid Development. It is clear the author has kept abreast of the latest research and best practices as the science of software development has evolved since the first edition was published.
When this book first came out, I strongly recommended that my team read it, and have recommended so many times for new developers and especially senior members of subsequent projects I've led. That recommendation stands - and, if anything, is even stronger: frankly, anyone who aspires to a leadership role in software development efforts and who has **not** read this book is needlessly handicapping their ability to succeed in this industry.
I have not heard of this book being used in a college course, which is perhaps understandable, given that it is designed for the benefit of professionals already out "in the field" - but it should be!
as good as everyone says it is October 22, 2006
Thing with a hook
16 out of 17 found this review helpful
Code Complete pops up regularly on the lists of the 'read this book or you'll never get a job and everyone else will laugh at you' genre, so if you're easily influenced, like me, you may approach this book with an air of duty rather than anticipation. Fortunately, despite its heft, this is well worth the plaudits that have been heaped upon it. I actually enjoyed this more than The Pragmatic Programmer and Programming Pearls, two books often mentioned in the same breath as this tome.
CC covers pretty much every part of the software development lifecycle, from planning to code reviews to testing. These are all pretty good discussions, but the best bit is definitely the chapters on coding. Most of the examples are in Visual Basic or Java, so you'd do well to know one of those languages.
When it comes to object modelling, there's actually a reasonable set of guidelines harvestable from literature, and languages tend to diverge more on issues of packaging, so CC is at its best at the lower level procedural details of code layout, formatting, loop construction, optimisation and so on. Many books claim to provide coding guidelines, but don't do much beyond stating the obvious like (for Java) "use camel case for variable names", "start class names with capital letters" and "avoid Hungarian notation". CC is different because it actually provides useful recommendations. As an example, there's a very good discussion on when and where the use of loop-breaking constructs like break and continue ('next' in Ruby and Perl) are appropriate. Few (if any) other books provide this sort of practical detail.
It's well-written, with just the right amount of humour in its exhortations - the withering references to coders who investigate loop bugs by randomly adjusting the termination criterion up or down by one until it works raised a wry smile from this reviewer.
To summarise, this is a collection of best practices distilled from a pretty huge amount of reading, and is genuinely helpful. I would certainly point any programming beginner at this book.
Pro-coder's handbook.. August 20, 2004
Mike (CA)
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
If you want to write code for a living, read this book. The advice can be applied and is valid across languages. This book you will help you become a valuable member of the code team by teaching the way to write solid code, that will be easy to extend and maintain.
If you are a lead I would suggest Rapid Development by the same author. These books will pay for themselves many times over.
The 2nd edition has been fairly extensively updated to include commentary on the newer methodologies, but the core is the same.
Yes, yet another 5 star review... August 14, 2007
G. Harris (Pomona, California USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Inded, this is the ultimate guide to software development in the industry. Covering all general practices in development while maintaining good platform independence (though some understanding of .NET is a good idea). If you're a developer and need to buy one book, buy this one, the rest of it's online somewhere but this stuff is "expert experience in a book".
Great stuff... September 1, 2007
Bruce Armstrong
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
My only disappointment was to find that some coding practices I've been using for the last 10 years or so he is now recommending against. Actually a few of them I would be glad to give up (large comment blocks at the beginning of scripts) but others are well ingrained. I can see his argument, but it will take a while for this old dog to relearn those new tricks.
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