Code Complete


I recently finished reading Steve McConnell’s “Code Complete”. In hindsight, I should have kept a list of all of the great things contained inside the book. The book is packed with information on software design and construction, lots of examples, and even more references to other sources. McConnell outlines the professional development plan used at his company, making it easy for anyone to get on a useful reading track.

And I have. I have read two of the references within this book (not necessarily in the professional development plan), and they have turned out to be worthwhile. The first was a classic, “How to win friends & influence people”, b Dale Carnegie. The other was, Conceptual Blockbusting.

Another related Amazon suggested reading was Donald Norman’s, “The design of everyday things”. I read most of this on my plane ride to Japan, and finished it this morning. It talks about all the things designers should (and shouldn’t do) to make products (or software) easy, intuitive, and just plain user-friendly. The book is comforting in the sense that it discusses how failure to use something (a tool, a software), is often the fault of bad design. Out of the book, some of the most important points of design are really what should be almost common sense; things like providing a clear mental model, making the system state visible, hiding functions that aren’t necessary for a task, and using standards. The book gives plenty of good references to everyday objects that were poorly designed (several examples of doors and faucets). And I was even surprised to read that the author uses (or used) emacs. I will definitely be coming back to this book the next time I (try) and design a UI.

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