Make The Code Better Than You Found It
As a developer you will have a lot of time maintaining working code.
There are definitely times where you are writing more new code than maintaining, upgrading, bug fixing and improving old code, but in general code is expensive and people want to run it for a long time.
Often you’ll jump into code to fix a bug, investigate an issue or answer a question.
When you do so, improve it.
This doesn’t mean you rewrite it, or upgrade all the libraries it depends on, or rename all the variables.
You don’t need to transform it.
But you should make it better. Just clean it up a bit.
So, in this article I will share with you some books that will help you to be a clean coder.
1- Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin
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.
This book’s biggest strength is that it includes tons of code examples, including some long and in-depth ones.
Instead of just listing rules or principles of clean code, many of the chapters go through these code examples and iteratively improve them.
This book is a must-read for every professional software developer.
Strongly recommended!
2-The Clean Coder by Robert C. Martin
This book contains practical advice about everything from estimating and coding to refactoring and testing.
You will learn how to communicate, estimate and deal with difficult situations at work.
The Clean Coder will help you become one of the best professional.
3-Head First Design Pattern by Eric Freeman, Kathy Sierra
This book is a fast-track to design patterns, battle-proven solutions to commonly occurring problems in software design.
The book presents a complicated topic in a fun, readable and practical way.
Head First Design Patterns uses a visually rich format designed for the way your brain works, not a text-heavy approach that puts you to sleep.
Must-read for every developer doing OO design.
4-GROWING OBJECT-ORIENTED SOFTWARE GUIDED BY TESTS By Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce
Test-Driven Development (TDD) is now an established technique for delivering better software faster.
TDD is based on a simple idea: Write tests for your code before you write the code itself.
However, this “simple” idea takes skill and judgment to do well.
This book shows how to create a realistic project using TDD and is full of code examples.
Strongly recommended for TDD Developer !
5-Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software by Michael Nygard
If you’re a software developer, and you don’t want to get alerts every night for the rest of your life, help is here.
With a combination of case studies about huge losses, lost revenue, lost reputation, lost time, lost opportunity and practical, down-to-earth advice that was all gained through painful experience.
This book helps you avoid the pitfalls that cost companies millions of dollars in downtime and reputation.
Get this book to skip the pain and get the experience
Conclusion:
Code isn’t everything, but it is an important work output.
Whenever you touch it, you should strive to leave it in a better place that it was before.
So, these books will help you to be an excellent craftmanship programmer.
Bonus:
The working environment of an average programmer entails sitting around a desk for long hours surrounded by gadgets.
The reality here is that, there is a huge possibility of programmers developing certain health conditions and computer related injuries.
From my personal experience, I am suffering sometimes from back pain, caused by long hours sitting in front of my computer, sometime with a wrong position.
I recommend a Posture Corrector to regain proper posture which can help to prevent the onset of back, neck and shoulder pain. The Posture Corrector helps provide alignment while sitting, standing, lying down or during your other daily activities.
I write one article per week about programming, thanks for supporting me on patreon, by being my contributor :-)
Some related articles you might interest in :
1-Invest Your Golden Time in Transferable Skills
2– 4 Practical Books for Software Architecture
4– 6 Best Programmers of All Time
This story originated from : selcote.com
