Summary: This book is a series of tips about how to write good software. It starts with the design process, moves on to coding, and then debugging. The author manages to fit quite a few tidbits into about 1000 pages.
Comments: I think I learned quite a few things, but I would say most of the value of the book lies in being able to reference it later. And in spite of being long (and taking me 6 months to read), I found it interesting. I kept stopping to write down things that I found useful or amusing or that caused me to reflect on something. I did find a couple (probable?) inaccuracies, but neither of them had anything to do with code; they were both in examples. One related to the highways in western Washington (a reference to an exit that doesn't exist) and the other related to car speedometers (a claim that they read 0 when you're backing up because they can't go negative). I'm not sure what percentage of my comments related to code and what percentage were things like squee over the penguin that was on a picture of an iceburg or noticing random pictures from somewhere in western Washington (the author is from somewhere not far from Seattle, which is probably why places I'm familiar with kept popping up). My notes also included a long list of books and articles that might be worth reading. There were a number of references to studies that people had done, and I'm curious how they came up with their numbers and if they have any speculation as to cause. I would say it's worth reading for any programmers out there, but probably over the head of most other people.
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