http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=737305


in reply to Beautiful Code

Would you recommend it (the book)? Thought of buying it maybe you want to add a book review here? ( I trust the Perlmonks community reviews more than that amazon reviews which I wonder sometimes why they are so good ;-))

MH

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Beautiful Code
by gwadej (Chaplain) on Jan 19, 2009 at 15:11 UTC

    I reviewed the book on my website last year. I think I would recommend the book given the caveats in my review.

    I did (and still do) think this book is more useful for more senior programmers. I found the book to be most useful when recognizing that the beauty of the code was often a function of the context in which it was used. A more junior programmer might not recognize the context and therefore get the wrong impression.

    G. Wade
Re^2: Beautiful Code
by ady (Deacon) on Jan 22, 2009 at 06:50 UTC
    This can be classified as an "advanced book" in the sense that to really evaluate/appreciate the design choices made by the 30+ different authors (and projects), you should have some experience developping software, where you have wrestled with the same general kind of design issues.

    You should also have a reading familiarity with language grammars (BNF) and parsing, algorithms, complexity (O) and testing, programming languages (C, C++, Java, Haskell, Scheme/Lisp, Perl), frameworks (OO) and architectures (layering, services).

    For a novice (actually for any...) programmer, I'd rather as a first read recommend a book like "Perl Best Practices" by Damian Conway or Bjarne Stroustrups new book on Programming, Principles and Practice(see ref). But with the above prerequisites, I find the "Beautiful Code" book thought provoking and inspiring (each author has his own preferences viz. design and coding - sometimes contradicting - , but they describe the alternatives, explain their mistakes and argue for their final choices.

    Best regards,
    Allan Dystrup