SPUG: Steve McConnel at the WSA Developer SIG on Monday, March 8

Michael R. Wolf MichaelRWolf at att.net
Sat Mar 6 16:07:55 CST 2004


Michael R. Wolf <MichaelRWolf at att.net> writes:

> Tim Maher <tim at consultix-inc.com> writes:
>
>> On Mon, Mar 01, 2004 at 01:58:34PM -0800, Michael R. Wolf wrote:
>>> 
>>> This sounds like a great opportunity. When Steve McConnell speaks,
>>
>> Who's he?
>
> Author or "Code Complete", a best-selling tome (bible?) on coding.
> It's from Microsoft Press, but I've heard great things about it.
>
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1556154844/qid=1078540234//ref=pd_ka_1/102-4318735-7630554?v=glance&s=books&n=507846


In preparation for the meeting on Monday, I've started actually
reading the book. I like it. It's a collection of best current
practices (as of 1993) culled from academia, trade press, and actual
coding, and filled with over 500 examples of good and bad coding. It's
language-agnostic, preferring to discuss those issues that transcend
any particular language. And it's heavily centered on coding (often
called construction or development). To wit:

    "If this book were a dog, it would nuzzle up to construction, wag
    its tail at design and testing, and bark at the other development
    activities."

In other words, it's coding-centric view of this softwar process

     system specification
     requirements analysis
     architectural design
   > detailed design
>>>> coding and debugging
   > unit testing
     system testing
     maintenance

As for the 1993 focus, the 2nd edition is on the presses, and due
soon. The talk on Monday should mention a lot of what's been learned
in the past decade and folded into the new edition.

It should be a good meeting.

-- 
Michael R. Wolf
    All mammals learn by playing!
        MichaelRWolf at att.net





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