Code That Fits in Your Head: Heuristics for Software Engineering
Author(s): Mark Seemann (Author)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Publication Date: 15 Nov. 2021
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Print length: 408 pages
ISBN-10: 0137464401
ISBN-13: 9780137464401
Book Description
How to Reduce Code Complexity and Develop Software More Sustainably “Mark Seemann is well known for explaining complex concepts clearly and thoroughly. In this book he condenses his wide-ranging software development experience into a set of practical, pragmatic techniques for writing sustainable and human-friendly code. This book will be a must-read for every programmer.” — Scott Wlaschin, author of Domain Modeling Made Functional Code That Fits in Your Head offers indispensable, practical advice for writing code at a sustainable pace and controlling the complexity that causes projects to spin out of control.
Reflecting decades of experience helping software teams succeed, Mark Seemann guides you from zero (no code) to deployed features and shows how to maintain a good cruising speed as you add functionality, address cross-cutting concerns, troubleshoot, and optimize. You’ll find valuable ideas, practices, and processes for key issues ranging from checklists to teamwork, encapsulation to decomposition, API design to unit testing.
Seemann illuminates his insights with code examples drawn from a complete sample project. Written in C#, they’re designed to be clear and useful to anyone who uses any object-oriented language including Java , C++, and Python. To facilitate deeper exploration, all code and extensive commit messages are available for download.
Choose mindsets and processes that work, and escape bad metaphors that don’t
Use checklists to liberate yourself, improving outcomes with the skills you already have
Get past “analysis paralysis” by creating and deploying a vertical slice of your application
Counteract forces that lead to code rot and unnecessary complexity
Master better techniques for changing code behavior
Discover ways to solve code problems more quickly and effectively
Think more productively about performance and security
If you’ve ever suffered through bad projects or had to cope with unmaintainable legacy code, this guide will help you make things better next time and every time.
Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“We progress in software by standing on the shoulders of those who came before us. Mark’s vast experience ranges from philosophical and organisational considerations right down to the precise details of writing code. In this book, you’re offered an opportunity to build on that experience. Use it.” –Adam Ralph, speaker, tutor, and software simplifier, Particular Software
“I’ve been reading Mark’s blogs for years and he always manages to entertain while at the same time offering deep technical insights.
Code That Fits in Your Head follows in that vein, offering a wealth of information to any software developer looking to take their skills to the next level.” –Adam Tornhill, founder of CodeScene, author of Software Design X-Rays and Your Code as a Crime Scene
“My favorite thing about this book is how it uses a single code base as a working example. Rather than having to download separate code samples, you get a single Git repository with the entire application. Its history is handcrafted to show the evolution of the code alongside the concepts being explained in the book. As you read about a particular principle or technique, you’ll find a direct reference to the commit that demonstrates it in practice. Of course, you’re also free to navigate the history at your own leisure, stopping at any stage to inspect, debug, or even experiment with the code. I’ve never seen this level of interactivity in a book before, and it brings me special joy because it takes advantage of Git’s unique design in a new constructive way.”
–Enrico Campidoglio, independent consultant, speaker and Pluralsight author
“Mark Seemann not only has decades of experience architecting and building large software systems, but is also one of the foremost thinkers on how to scale and manage the complex relationship between such systems and the teams that build them.”
–Mike Hadlow, freelance software consultant and blogger
“Mark writes, ‘Successful software endures’–this book will help you to write that kind of software.”
“Mark has an extraordinary ability to help others think deeply about the industry and profession of software development. With every interview on
.NET Rocks! I have come away knowing I would have to go back and listen to my own show to really take in everything we discussed.” –Richard Campbell, co-host, .NET Rocks!
From the Back Cover
How to Reduce Code Complexity and Develop Software More Sustainably”Mark Seemann is well known for explaining complex concepts clearly and thoroughly. In this book he condenses his wide-ranging software development experience into a set of practical, pragmatic techniques for writing sustainable and human-friendly code. This book will be a must-read for every programmer.” –Scott Wlaschin, author of Domain Modeling Made FunctionalCode That Fits in Your Head offers indispensable, practical advice for writing code at a sustainable pace and controlling the complexity that causes projects to spin out of control. Reflecting decades of experience helping software teams succeed, Mark Seemann guides you from zero (no code) to deployed features and shows how to maintain a good cruising speed as you add functionality, address cross-cutting concerns, troubleshoot, and optimize. You’ll find valuable ideas, practices, and processes for key issues ranging from checklists to teamwork, encapsulation to decomposition, API design to unit testing.Seemann illuminates his insights with code examples drawn from a complete sample project. Written in C#, they’re designed to be clear and useful to anyone who uses any object-oriented language including Java , C++, and Python. To facilitate deeper exploration, all code and extensive commit messages are available for download.Choose mindsets and processes that work, and escape bad metaphors that don’tUse checklists to liberate yourself, improving outcomes with the skills you already haveGet past analysis paralysis by creating and deploying a vertical slice of your applicationCounteract forces that lead to code rot and unnecessary complexityMaster better techniques for changing code behaviorDiscover ways to solve code problems more quickly and effectivelyThink more productively about performance and securityIf you’ve ever suffered through bad projects or had to cope with unmaintainable legacy code, this guide will help you make things better next time and every time. Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.
About the Author
Mark Seemann, a former economist, found a second career as a programmer and has worked as a web and enterprise developer since the late 1990s. He is a Certified Rockstar Developer and has written a Jolt Award-winning book about Dependency Injection, given more than a hundred international conference talks, and authored video courses for both Pluralsight and Clean Coders. Mark has regularly published his blog ( blog.ploeh.dk) since 2006.
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