Chris Rauber - Back To Basics

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Friday, June 13, 2008

Back To Basics

Inspired by a recent Hanselminutes podcast about getting back to basics, along with my experiences at my last client, I've decided to start a series of blog posts on fundamentals and best practices. Ideally, I'd like to post about once a week on some aspect of programming that isn't necessarily tied to a particular technology or framework. While these posts may contain code samples in a particular language, I'd like them to be applicable across platforms.

In this first post, I want to talk about the gravitation of junior programmers to books on particular technologies rather than books on fundamentals.

Let's face it - programming books are nearing end-of-life status. Don't get me wrong, I love reading programming books (I'm finishing up one right now and have two more in the queue). But in this age of the internet and how quickly technologies change, coupled with our "gotta have it now" instant gratification society, it's next to impossible to publish a book that is relevant, accurate, timely, and interesting. My hat is off to those people who can do so successfully.

Despite this fact, programming books are (for now) still quite popular. It's certainly not from a lack of volume, both in the number of books available and in the length of the individual books. A former colleague of mine recently bought an ASP.Net book that appeared to have decimated half the pacific northwest and was so heavy it probably could be considered a weapon. It makes me wonder how a publisher thinks any modern developer can consume 1,500 page books on subjects that, let's be honest, aren't particularly enthralling.

Now I love the fact that developers are so interested in learning that they continue to buy programming books despite the logic that says they'd be better off googling and reading blogs. Here's my problem with developers who buy programming books ... the books I see on developers' bookshelves tend to be targeted at particular technologies (e.g. LINQ, WCF, Ajax, etc...) rather than general software engineering practices. In particular, I'm talking about junior developers who probably need the fundamental books the most.

Here is a starting place for books that I feel form a solid foundation for a professional programmer:

Code Complete

Start here. If you've already read it, read it again. I've heard it called the definitive guide to practical programming. I tend to agree. One of the best programming blogs on the internet belongs to Jeff Atwood, who borrowed the name of his blog (with McConnell's permission) - Coding Horror - from this book.

The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master

This book was way ahead of its time. Hard to believe this book is approaching 10 years old. I think it's definitely contributed (if not led the way) to the rise of agile methodologies, unit testing, and polyglot programming, as well as the rising popularity of dynamic languages. You would be well served to check out a number of titles in the pragmatic series. IMHO, it's the best publisher of technical books these days.

Effective Java

If you work in a Java shop, this book should be issued to you on your first day. I'd make a strong argument that even C# developers would benefit from reading this book. The second edition of this book just came out, reflecting the changes found in the 1.5 JDK. There is also an Effective C# book by Bill Wagner that is also very good. I've read on his blog that he is updating his book, too, since the first edition came out just before the 2.0 version of the .Net framework was released.

Refactoring: Improving The Design Of Existing Code

In the overall lifetime of a piece of software, new development (hopefully) constitutes a very short percentage of that time. Maintenance and enhancements should encompass a much longer period. Your design is never right the first time. Agile thinking teaches us that things will change and designs can always be improved. This book helps you improve those designs, as well as teaching to look for "code smells" - patterns of software that lend themselves to refactoring. The end result is code that is simpler and easier to maintain.

Design Patterns

The seminal book on object-oriented programming. This is the one that gave birth to the pattern vernacular programmers still use today: factory, facade, strategy, command, visitor, etc... The examples are in C++ and SmallTalk, so it's usually a little tough for junior level programmers to grok. I wouldn't jump into this one first, but once you understand the basics of OOP, this book helps you take it to the next level.

J2EE Development Without EJB

This one is kind of an outlier, since obviously by its title and content, it is definitely aimed at Java/J2EE. But this book (along with Rod Johnson's previous book) was possibly one of the most influential programming books I've ever read. It was written at a time when J2EE was at its height, and openly questioned the way 95% of Java apps were being written. It changed the way I write my applications, bringing alive the concept of "separation of concerns", layering your architecture, and making sure that your components were easily testable. It gave birth to the concept of inversion of control, as well as showing off a true MVC implementation that facilitated testing outside of a web container. Enterprise Java development was turned on its side due to Johnson and his Spring Framework. .Net is just now getting up to speed on these concepts.

I've said it many times, I'd be much more inclined to have a strong developer on my team who has no experience in a particular technology rather than a weak one who has been doing that technology for 5 years. Once you grasp the fundamentals, you can pick up any technology and be productive much quicker.