Editorial Reviews:
Provides advice, real-world examples in C, C++, Java, and a variety of special purpose languages. Includes debugging, testing, performance, portability, design, interfaces, style, and notation. Softcover. DLC: Computer programming.
Coauthored by Brian Kernighan, one of the pioneers of the C programming language, The Practice of Programming is a manual of good programming style that will help any C/C++ or Java developer create faster, more maintainable code. Early sections look at some of the pitfalls of C/C++, with numerous real-world excerpts of confusing or incorrect code. The authors offer many tips and solutions, including a guide for variable names and commenting styles. Next, they cover algorithms, such as binary and quick sorting. Here, the authors show how to take advantage of the built-in functions in standard C/C++. When it comes to data structures, such as arrays, linked lists, and trees, the authors compare the options available to C, C++, Java, and even Perl developers with a random-text-generation program (using a sophisticated Markov chain algorithm) written for each language. Subsequent sections cover debugging tips (including how to isolate errors with debugging statements) and testing strategies (both white-box and black-box testing) for verifying the correctness of code. Final sections offer tips on creating more portable C/C++ code, with the last chapter suggesting that programmers can take advantage of interpreters (and regular expressions) to gain better control over their code. A handy appendix summarizes the dozens of tips offered throughout the book. With its commonsense expertise and range of examples drawn from C, C++, and Java, The Practice of Programming is an excellent resource for improving the style and performance of your code base. --Richard Dragan
Customer Reviews:
Displaying 1 to 5 of 51 total reviews (Page 1 of 11):
 Great Book!!!
This book is perfect for any computer engineer who wants to get more information about programming.  Good Introduction
This book isn't bad. If you have any formal academic education in the area, you will probably want to just skip the first 2 1/2 chapters: they will have nothing new for you.
The later parts of the book cover enough topics that there will probably be some things to pick up from it here and there. This book will definitely not make your brain sweat; easy reading for a weekend you don't have anything better to do.
On the flip side, it isn't really going to give you any immediately useful skills. Destined to Become a Classic
When I began my first career as a writer, I was constantly referred to "Elements of Style" by Strunk & White. This short, lucid, and concise handbook, written in 1957, has become the most frequently used text to instruct beginning and veteran writers how to perfect their style. "The Practice of Programming" does for software professionals what "Elements of Style" did for writers. In its short 267 pages, "Practice" addresses the basic elements of writing good source code, by consistently adhering to the principles of simplicity, clarity and generality. In a world where poor programming style is all too common, "Practice" reminds programmers that good programming style is just as important as their functionality. It is not enough that source code is executed well by the computer. It is also critical that other programmers can understand and interpret the code as well, especially during the later stages of a project when changes, bugs and integration difficulties predominate. Other books on programming are far better at teaching technique and functionality. This book shows how you can pull it all together to produce elegant, concise and compact code which optimizes both computer and human resources. As a project manager, I heartily endorse these principles to produce software which maximizes scope, cost, schedule and quality performance. Good but tries to do too much--better to read a book on each topic
If you've limited yourself to reading only one book about programming, this might be the one. It does touch on many of the down-in-the-details practical aspects of programming, in a compact 200-page paperback.
But I think the authors try to do to much at once, and end up not doing it as well as they could for any specific audience.
Better to look at the table of contents, and then read the best entire book out there on each topic, when you're interested in that topic.
(If you happen to choose chapter 1, then it's just as easy to read Kernighan "in the original": the classic "Elements of Programming Style" he wrote back in 1974 with Plauger.) excellent book
Apart from Brian W. Kernigham being the author, which automatically makes it a must read, this book is full of real life examples, pointers, and crafty exercises that will benefit anyone from novice to a master programmer.
It's well written in a easy prose to follow; full of great advices, among others, on style, debugging, notation. And will serve as eye opener for those who are just fooling around with high level languages and never had any experience a the lower level language. Were you wondering what exactly is a hash table is, or how does a parser and interpreter work? Well this book will show you the fundamentals in easy to follow examples while teaching you practices that come from years of experience and a lot of mistakes.
The code quality, of anyone who reads this book, will improve significantly. More Customer Reviews:
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