Books (Professional)
Code Complete
by
(1993, Microsoft Press)
Slightly dated, but still the best single book
I know of for the basic nuts and bolts of actually writing code. Straightforward
how-tos on such topics as code layout, documentation, implementing table-driven
methods, and so forth. Also the best description of code tuning I've
ever come across. Minimal coverage of object-oriented technologies, and (of
course) no coverage of Web-based technologies.
Refactoring
by
(2000, Addison-Wesley)
Fixing bad code has been something we developers have been doing as long as
we've been developing code in the first place. Up to now, however, it's been
a hit-or-miss approach. Martin Fowler provides a systematic, automatable
technique for improving existing code, along with a collection of common "bad
code smells" and ways to eliminate them.
If your editor or IDE doesn't support refactoring directly, Martin gives you
step-by-step directions that are so simple even he can follow them.
