Good programming practices

[Brandt Charles]

On the angry Anandtech forum, every programming question undoubtedly elicits a smart (with veiled insults) response from a veteran programmer about good software engineering and programming practices.

Are there any well known books out there addressing this that can be recommended by the users of this much less angry forum?

Thanks in advance,

Brandt

[Edwin Keeton]

All the answers are probably not in a single book. Perhaps a good place to start is Object Oriented Software Construction, by Bertrand Meyer.

[Jeff Jetton]

Originally posted by Edwin Keeton:
All the answers are probably not in a single book.

True.

But an astounding number of answers are in Code Complete, by Steve McConnell.

The fact that one of the best books on well-written software comes from Microsoft Press is an irony not lost on me.

- Jeff

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Both worthy books.

But less theoretical, more accessible and a hell of a lot more fun than either of these is the excellent The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master, which catapulted Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt to their current locations in the programmer's firmament. If I had to recommend a single book on this topic to someone who hadn't read about best practices before, I'd name this one, hands down.

[louise rochford]

Let me second that. I must have read getting on for a hundred IT books over the last 10 years on various aspects of programming or design. This is by far the best, putting everything into context and giving guidence on how to skill yourself up to be a good developer, whatever language you happen to be working in at the moment. I'd hope it would be on the reading list for anyone coming out of a programming degree course & embarking on their career.