August 09, 2005
Beautiful Code
"Space that hasn't been explored much" and "space that hasn't been explored at alll" are two very different things. On the cover of The Practice of Programming Kernighan and Pike list "Simplicity, Clarity, Generality" as virtues to strive for. Paul Graham has done some writing on "Taste for Makers." You could argue that Martin Fowler's Improving the Design of Existing Code (Addison-Wesley Professional, 1999) is really a book on improving the beauty of existing code, while Pete McBreen's Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2001) and Dave Thomas and Andy Hunt's The Pragmatic Programmer: From Journeyman to Master (Addison-Wesley Professional, 1999) are a call to action for the software community--to re-frame programming as craft. Finally, Steve McConnell's Code Complete (Microsoft Press, 2004) is a classic on what "good" code looks like.
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