Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think

Greg Wilson, Andy Oram

"O'Reilly Media, Inc.", Jun 26, 2007 - Computers - 620 pages

How do the experts solve difficult problems in software development? In this unique and insightful book, leading computer scientists offer case studies that reveal how they found unusual, carefully designed solutions to high-profile projects. You will be able to look over the shoulder of major coding and design experts to see problems through their eyes.

This is not simply another design patterns book, or another software engineering treatise on the right and wrong way to do things. The authors think aloud as they work through their project's architecture, the tradeoffs made in its construction, and when it was important to break rules.
This book contains 33 chapters contributed by Brian Kernighan, KarlFogel, Jon Bentley, Tim Bray, Elliotte Rusty Harold, Michael Feathers,Alberto Savoia, Charles Petzold, Douglas Crockford, Henry S. Warren,Jr., Ashish Gulhati, Lincoln Stein, Jim Kent, Jack Dongarra and PiotrLuszczek, Adam Kolawa, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Diomidis Spinellis, AndrewKuchling, Travis E. Oliphant, Ronald Mak, Rogerio Atem de Carvalho andRafael Monnerat, Bryan Cantrill, Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat, SimonPeyton Jones, Kent Dybvig, William Otte and Douglas C. Schmidt, AndrewPatzer, Andreas Zeller, Yukihiro Matsumoto, Arun Mehta, TV Raman,Laura Wingerd and Christopher Seiwald, and Brian Hayes.
Beautiful Code is an opportunity for master coders to tell their story. All author royalties will be donated to Amnesty International.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - brikis98 - LibraryThing

A mixed bag, but overall, worth reading. Pros: I think programmers do not spend enough time studying the code of others, so books like this are an important step in encouraging the study of this craft ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - joeldinda - LibraryThing

Essentially, this is thirty or so authors' takes on what makes code beautiful. The approaches vary widely, as does the writing. Some essays are full of code, others of theory, still others mix the two ...

Contents

• A REGULAR EXPRESSION MATCHER: 1
• INTERFACE AS ONTOLOGY: 11
• THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CODE I NEVER WROTE: 29
• FINDING THINGS: 41
• LESSONS: 59
• BEAUTY THROUGH FRAGILITY: 75
• BEAUTIFUL TESTS: 85
• ONTHEFLY CODE GENERATION FOR IMAGE PROCESSING: 105
• TOP DOWN OPERATOR PRECEDENCE: 129
• THE QUEST FOR AN ACCELERATED POPULATION COUNT: 147
• THETECHNOLOGYOFFREEDOM: 161
• GROWING BEAUTIFUL CODE IN BIOPERL: 187
• THE DESIGN OFTHE GENE SORTER: 217
• THE LONGTERM BENEFITS OF BEAUTIFUL DESIGN: 253
• THE BENEFITS: 267
• ANOTHER LEVEL OF INDIRECTION: 279
• BEING ALL THINGS: 293
• MULTIDIMENSIONAL ITERATORS IN NUMPY: 303
• A HIGHLY RELIABLE ENTERPRISE SYSTEM FOR NASAS: 319
• DESIGNING FOR MAXIMUM ADAPTABILITY: 339
• A SPOONFUL OF SEWAGE: 353
• DISTRIBUTED PROGRAMMING WITH MAPREDUCE: 371
• BEAUTIFUL CONCURRENCY: 385
• THE SYNTAXCASE EXPANDER: 407
• AN OBJECTORIENTED: 429
• INTEGRATING BUSINESS PARTNERS THE RESTFUL WAY: 451
• BEAUTIFUL DEBUGGING: 463
• TREATING CODE AS AN ESSAY: 477
• WHEN ABUTTONISALLTHATCONNECTSYOUTOTHEWORLD: 483
• THE COMPLETE AUDIO DESKTOP: 503
• CODE IN MOTION: 527
• WRITING PROGRAMS FOR THE BOOK: 539
• AFTERWORD: 553
• INDEX: 565

Bibliographic information

• Title: Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think; Theory in Practice (O'Reilly)
• Authors: Greg Wilson, Andy Oram
• Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", 2007
• ISBN: 0596554672, 9780596554675
• Length: 620 pages
• Subjects: Computers / Languages / General; Computers / Programming / General; Computers / Software Development & Engineering / General