Thursday, November 18, 2004 4:48 PM jerdenn

Code Complete, 2nd edition

Well, I had recently complained about some of the pre-publishing hype for McConnell's Code Complete, 2nd Edition.  Every book deserves its chance, so I picked up a copy.

My conclusion?  For too many pages, I felt like I was reading the first edition.  This book is pretty good, but I don't really know if it's worth reading if you've already got the first edition. 

McConnell's treatise on the proper placement of brackets went on for entirely too many pages.  I thought my eyes would bleed if he mentioned indentation structure one more time!

I readily admit that I am a fan of McConnell's Rapid Development. However, Code Complete will be busy gathering dust on my bookshelf.

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Comments

# re: Code Complete, 2nd edition

Friday, November 19, 2004 9:51 PM by Paul Lockwood

>>Code Complete will be busy gathering dust on my bookshelf.
Sorry to hear you did not dig Code Complete. In my opinion the first version was the most useful book any programmer could buy, and am sorry I only discovered it in 1998. Even as a veteran of three CS degrees I still rate it very, very highly.

# re: Code Complete, 2nd edition

Friday, November 19, 2004 11:48 PM by Jerry Dennany

I did dig code complete (1st edition) - I just don't think that the 2nd addition is worth purchasing if you're already a proud owner of the 1st ed. There are just too many other books out there to waste time re-reading this one.

# re: Code Complete, 2nd edition

Sunday, November 21, 2004 3:45 PM by Paul Lockwood

There is certainly little totally new material in CC2, and if you've read + remember everything from the original there is little point in buying the new one.

Still anyone who has not read either version should rush out and buy CC2. I bought it because of the amazing impact the original had on my programming ability. Reading CC2 jogged my memory on a lot of topics. When reading the first one I was only 5 years out of school (University to non Americans) and did not understand all of the topics. This time around it was awesome to really understand everything Steve talks about.

# re: Code Complete, 2nd edition

Saturday, December 04, 2004 2:03 AM by Jeff Atwood

Sacrilege!

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