Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

Front Cover
Pearson Education, 2009 - Computers - 431 pages
Even bad code can function. But if code isn't clean, it can bring a development organization to its knees. Every year, countless hours and significant resources are lost because of poorly written code. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Noted software expert Robert C. Martin presents a revolutionary paradigm with Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship. Martin has teamed up with his colleagues from Object Mentor to distill their best agile practice of cleaning code "on the fly" into a book that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman and make you a better programmer--but only if you work at it.

What kind of work will you be doing? You'll be reading code--lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what's right about that code, and what's wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft.

Clean Code is divided into three parts. The first describes the principles, patterns, and practices of writing clean code. The second part consists of several case studies of increasing complexity. Each case study is an exercise in cleaning up code--of transforming a code base that has some problems into one that is sound and efficient. The third part is the payoff: a single chapter containing a list of heuristics and "smells" gathered while creating the case studies. The result is a knowledge base that describes the way we think when we write, read, and clean code.

Readers will come away from this book understanding
  • How to tell the difference between good and bad code
  • How to write good code and how to transform bad code into good code
  • How to create good names, good functions, good objects, and good classes
  • How to format code for maximum readability
  • How to implement complete error handling without obscuring code logic
  • How to unit test and practice test-driven development
This book is a must for any developer, software engineer, project manager, team lead, or systems analyst with an interest in producing better code.

 

Contents

Meaningful Names
17
Functions
31
Comments
53
Formatting
75
Objects and Data Structures
93
Error Handling
103
Boundaries
113
Unit Tests
121
Concurrency
177
Successive Refinement
193
JUnit Internals
251
Refactoring SerialDate
267
Smells and Heuristics
285
Concurrency II
317
orgjfreedateSerialDate
349
Cross References of Heuristics
409

Classes
135
Systems
153
Emergence
171
Epilogue
411
Index
413
Copyright

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About the author (2009)

Robert C. "Uncle Bob" Martin has been a software professional since 1970 and an international software consultant since 1990. He is founder and president of Object Mentor, Inc., a team of experienced consultants who mentor their clients worldwide in the fields of C++, Java, C#, Ruby, OO, Design Patterns, UML, Agile Methodologies, and eXtreme programming.