Take a strategic approach to software construction—and produce superior products—with this fully updated edition of Steve McConnell’s critically praised and award-winning guide to software development best practices.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 112 Ratings

Very good book, but you need other things as well - 2009-08-21
Reviewer Rating:
This is a very good book. It covers many aspects of the best practices in programming. But I think one should be able to come up with much of it when he has the mind set to write code that would allow people to understand and maintain.

I would also like to add that this book is focused on construction only, and so it has omitted some other important topics. For one thing, Data Structure and Algorithm is not discussed. I do not think one can become an efficient programmer without good knowledge in Data Structure and Algorithm. This book is like speech lesson in programming , which tells you how to express yourself so that people will have no problem understanding your code. However, if you do not have the right solution in the first place, why would it even matter if your code is clear and simple? To this end, I would recommend "The art of computer programming" by Donald Knuth.

To further my argument for the importance of Data Structure and Algorithm, you may go to http://www.careercup.com/ and check out the interview problems from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc. See what the majority of the questions were concerning about. Why is so?

I would also like to mention that there are cases when using something less obvious and straight forward for the sake of performance is necessary. One has to understand the trade off between being close to man vs. close to machine. Seems to me that the book is largely about being close to man.

Overall, I think this is a very good book and I actually like it.

Too much detail - and not enough, both at the same time! - 2009-10-15
Reviewer Rating:
"In dubio, pro reo" - normally, I would give the book two or even three stars. But given the hype and over-enthusiastic voices surrounding it, I was _very_ disappointed after the lecture, and felt responsible to give it only one star as a countermeasure against this whoopla. Why?

In short: "Code Complete" could give a nice, throughout overview of nearly every aspect of software engineering. But it is bloated with quotes over quotes of studies and goes too often into too much details but without really giving true background information.

If you read "Code Complete" with a keen eye, you will notice that there is virtual no first-hands experience of McConnell in it - only the mentioned quotes of studies. And it shows - it gives the naive reader the false sense of knowledge, but will leave him without a true grasp of the material.

Two examples which illustrate the systematic problems in some parts of this book: At one point a study of Xerox from 1964 is used to illustrate how much time programmers spend in meetings, how much time with coding, how much time testing, documenting and so forth. McConnell himself admits that the figures are old. But airily he states that this doesn't matter, without giving any arguments why these numbers - which are not only from the last century but 45 years old! - matter in a fast-developing business as software engineering today! At some other point, he cites "Peopleware" from DeMarco: The best programmers are 10 times faster than the worst. Sadly, in "Peopleware" are assembler programmers compared with higher language programmers... and these numbers are from 1975.

In the chapter about testing he states that testing cannot prove absence of errors. Some pages later he boasts how he tested the final version of one of his programs for weeks with over 100.000 files until he was content with its quality... so he doesn't heed his own wisdom?! And this is one of the few places in the whole book where he gives first-hand experience...

Too keep this review short, I don't go into detail with the many inaccuracies and rhetorical dodges. They are simply annoying.

From my own experience I have to say: Any software project manager giving this book to experienced programmers will getting compliance, but no commitment. Being blunt: They will scoff at the shallowness of the book, given its size. A more compact treatise would have been way better. So I consider this book a wasted chance - after all this only one star, I'm afraid.

Software Engineering at its best! - 2009-10-20
Reviewer Rating:
From the number of people giving 5 stars to this book, anyone can tell this book is a gem. Most computer science textbooks in university are not doing the software industry a favour. They should use this book instead.

Its already all been said before. - 2009-09-16
Reviewer Rating:
Id write my own full length review but... I cant think of anything else to praise this book about that hasn't already been praised. Its a great book for both the novice and experienced programmer. If your serious about improving your software construction skills, this book is a MUST READ. It should be required reading for all programming degrees since it is pretty much language neutral. The lessons in this book will apply to pretty much any programming language out there at any time.

Best Programming practices book I ever read - 2009-09-01
Reviewer Rating:
This is a great book! If you are intrested software design and coding, this book is a MUST! I've leared so many things i didn't know about in college. 100% recommended =)