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Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction [Unabridged] [Paperback]

Steve McConnell
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
RRP: £39.49
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Book Description

1 July 2004 0735619670 978-0735619678 2

Widely considered one of the best practical guides to programming, Steve McConnell’s original CODE COMPLETE has been helping developers write better software for more than a decade. Now this classic book has been fully updated and revised with leading-edge practices—and hundreds of new code samples—illustrating the art and science of software construction. Capturing the body of knowledge available from research, academia, and everyday commercial practice, McConnell synthesizes the most effective techniques and must-know principles into clear, pragmatic guidance. No matter what your experience level, development environment, or project size, this book will inform and stimulate your thinking—and help you build the highest quality code.

Discover the timeless techniques and strategies that help you:

  • Design for minimum complexity and maximum creativity
  • Reap the benefits of collaborative development
  • Apply defensive programming techniques to reduce and flush out errors
  • Exploit opportunities to refactor—or evolve—code, and do it safely
  • Use construction practices that are right-weight for your project
  • Debug problems quickly and effectively
  • Resolve critical construction issues early and correctly
  • Build quality into the beginning, middle, and end of your project

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Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction + The Pragmatic Programmer + Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship (Robert C. Martin)
Price For All Three: £70.05

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Product details

  • Paperback: 950 pages
  • Publisher: MICROSOFT PRESS; 2 edition (1 July 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0735619670
  • ISBN-13: 978-0735619678
  • Product Dimensions: 19 x 4 x 23 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 25,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • See Complete Table of Contents

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Product Description

About the Author

Steve McConnell is recognized as one of the premier authors and voices in the development community. He is Chief Software Engineer of Construx Software and was the lead developer of Construx Estimate and of SPC Estimate Professional, winner of Software Development magazine's Productivity Award. He is the author of several books, including Code Complete and Rapid Development, both honored with Software Development magazine's Jolt Award.


Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
Developing computer software can be a complicated process, and in the last 25 years, researchers have identified numerous distinct activities that go into software development. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A very well-written, seminal book on software construction. It very effectively covers almost all of the important topics in software construction. This book partly also served as a revision of my software engineering classes in university. It very effectively, in fact blatantly reminds us that software engineering is all about managing complexity. However at the same time I have to be honest also in that it is not as "must have" as it is often projected. It also comes from the fact that for someone with 3-4+ years of professional experience, this book is not going to offer that much (though still recommended). With some 3.5 years working in industry, I already knew roughly some 70% of things told in this book. For example all those chapters on coding and naming conventions are not going to offer you much if you haven't already learned these things in first few years of your career. Many practices this book recommends are too good that are too obvious and many practices it condemns are too bad that make me wonder if people are really using them. Some chapters are really awesome, like "Design in Construction" and "Working Classes", some are very good such as "Managing Construction", most of them are good such as "Using Conditional" and "Unusual Control Structures", and a few are so so, e.g. "Layout and Style" , "Refactoring". Another problem with this book is that it is unnecessarily long, and verbose. It is composed of 35 chapters. In places it feels too redundant. In my opinion, the size of the book could have cut down by fixing these redundant things. e.g. why to include chapter 34, and why those Checklist sections? Also note that this book is more about coding than programming, e.g., it does not even remotely discuss data structures or algorithm analysis (Big O and stuff) etc.

Summary: Highly recommended to beginners in professional software development, moderately recommended to people with some experience, and not necessarily recommended to veterans.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory 5 Dec 2005
By Jennifers Daddy TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Code Complete 2 is another brilliant book from Steve mcConnell. I should have read this years ago when I graduated. It is easy to read despite being fairly chunky. Everything is here you'll need. Designing classes, loops, naming conventions, debugging, testing, refactoring, human factors and loads loads more.

I agree in part with the more negative review on here. Any book is the authors point of view, but Steve mcConnell backs everything he says with data from previous experiments, journals and "famous" successfull/failed projects. There are many compelling arguments in here to change the processes you use to develop and design software. I'm getting my boss to get everyone in the department a copy before our next major project. It's that good!

This needs to be mandatory reading, no excuses.

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33 of 36 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Every professional developer should read this book at least once in their career. It covers almost every aspect of modern software development (from a professional programmers point of view). In particular it adds some perspective to the many competing development methodologies around today. It's also relevant to both lone developers and those working in larger teams.

There's a few odd ommissions e.g. no coverage UML or patterns. However this is "nit picking" as the book as it stands (all 800+ pages) is a worldwind tour 'd force of best proctices within the software development industry.

Oh, and it's also a great read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Classic book, arguably slightly dated
The original book code complete was almost unique in the breadth of it's coverage and a real asset to those who want to improve. Read more
Published 20 days ago by K. Royle
2.0 out of 5 stars An interesting historical retrospective into a bygone era of...
I really enjoy reading books on how to improve my coding. Having read Clean Code, Refactoring: Improving, Pragmatic Programmer, etc, I could not really get rid of the feeling of... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Gianfranco Alongi
5.0 out of 5 stars The bible for every programmer
This is a very useful guide for every software developer regardless of the platform or language they use. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Pavel
4.0 out of 5 stars Early Days
About halfway through this book it reveals itself to be the programmer/systems engineer best practices combo we all need. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Niels Müller Larsen
5.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worth a read
I'm really not sure if I'm a veteran or not, writing rubbish code since I was a kid in the 80s and getting paid for it for the past couple of decades. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Benedict Carey
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
This book is very helpful for all developers of object oriented languages. It is a must have book which contains strategies for good software development. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Vlatko Dimov
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for any software developer
Whether you are experienced or novice, there will be something about this book that you will benefit from reading.
It's money well spent.
Published 23 months ago by Mr T
5.0 out of 5 stars If you write code for a living you must read this book
I was introduced to this book in 1st edition guise after writing code for about 10 years. I could not put it down it was so gripping. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Stephen Handley
5.0 out of 5 stars Code Complete 2
This book is an excellent read with something for all levels of experience. It has detailed step by step examples that cover all main areas in detail (and many sub topics too). Read more
Published on 21 Dec 2010 by Fergal Stanley
5.0 out of 5 stars a MUST-read
This book just covers EVERYTHING any programmer should know to build great software. It shows very concrete examples of what should or should not be done and offers ways to improve... Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2010 by Tibal
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