Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftmanship

Author: Robert C. Martin

ISBN: 0132350882

Clean Code is a fantastic exploration of what we can do to make our code manageable, readable, and understandable.  Few people realize how important this truly is until it is too late.  This usually happens years after the code was initially written when a change needs to be made.  The developers (which may even include the original author) open the old code only to find that none of them understand what is going on and, even if they did understand it, the code doesn’t lend itself to any kind of modification.  This typically happens because functions are enormous, performing more than one action or relying on conditions outside of themselves.  Clean Code provides the tools to avoid these pitfalls early on, so that looking at old code, while perhaps never a joy, can at least be tolerable.

The chapters in the first half of Clean Code cover a wide variety of concepts.  From topics as simple as good variable naming practices to a discussion of the Law of Demeter, Martin gives the reader all of the tools necessary to evolve a messy tangle of code into a clean and elegant product.

The second half of the book focuses on the process of applying the knowledge from the first half.  Martin walks the reader through a series of refactorings on a real piece of code and even demonstrates the added flexibility that is gained through the process.

Clean Code is an excellent resource for anyone that writes code.  I found that it gave me a greater appreciation for the process of writing code, and a keener eye for spotting trouble areas in existing code.