The Art of Readable Code: Simple and Practical Techniques for Writing Better Code / Edition 1

by Dustin Boswell, Trevor Foucher

Overview

As programmers, we’ve all seen source code that’s so ugly and buggy it makes our brain ache. Over the past five years, authors Dustin Boswell and Trevor Foucher have analyzed hundreds of examples of "bad code" (much of it their own) to determine why they’re bad and how they could be improved. Their conclusion? You need to write code that minimizes the time it would take someone else to understand it—even if that someone else is you.

This book focuses on basic principles and practical techniques you can apply every time you write code. Using easy-to-digest code examples from different languages, each chapter dives into a different aspect of coding, and demonstrates how you can make your code easy to understand.

• Simplify naming, commenting, and formatting with tips that apply to every line of code
• Refine your program’s loops, logic, and variables to reduce complexity and confusion
• Attack problems at the function level, such as reorganizing blocks of code to do one task at a time
• Write effective test code that is thorough and concise—as well as readable

"Being aware of how the code you create affects those who look at it later is an important part of developing software. The authors did a great job in taking you through the different aspects of this challenge, explaining the details with instructive examples."

—Michael Hunger, passionate Software Developer

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596802295
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	11/15/2011
Pages:	190
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Although raised in the circus, Dustin Boswell realized early on that he was better at computers than at acrobatics. Dustin received his B.S. from CalTech, where he got hooked on Computer Science, and then went to UC San Diego for his Master's Degree. He worked at Google for five years, on a variety of projects including web crawling infrastructure. Dustin is now an internet startup junkie who spends his free time hiking the Santa Monica mountains and being a new dad.

Trevor Foucher has been shipping software projects for over 10 years, including Windows 2000 and OneCare at Microsoft, and Webmaster Tools at Google. He's been an individual contributor, manager, and tech lead. His goal is to make code more readable and reliable.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Chapter 1: Code Should Be Easy to Understand
• Surface-Level Improvements
  • Chapter 2: Packing Information into Names
  • Chapter 3: Names That Can’t Be Misconstrued
  • Chapter 4: Aesthetics
  • Chapter 5: Knowing What to Comment
  • Chapter 6: Making Comments Precise and Compact
• Simplifying Loops and Logic
  • Chapter 7: Making Control Flow Easy to Read
  • Chapter 8: Breaking Down Giant Expressions
  • Chapter 9: Variables and Readability
• Reorganizing Your Code
  • Chapter 10: Extracting Unrelated Subproblems
  • Chapter 11: One Task at a Time
  • Chapter 12: Turning Thoughts into Code
  • Chapter 13: Writing Less Code
• Selected Topics
  • Chapter 14: Testing and Readability
  • Chapter 15: Designing and Implementing a “Minute/Hour Counter”
• Further Reading
• Colophon