skip@pobox.com wrote:
just get McDonnell's "Code Complete":
</F>
Sorry for the off-topic-ish post. My son (a fairly junior sysadmin type)
mentioned to me today that he was looking for online courses for Perl. (I
don't hold that against him. Perl is still a lingua franca in the sysadmin
realm.) In my work I have from time-to-time had to pick up and maintain
scripts (generally shell/Python stuff) which non-professional programmers
have written. It's never what you would call a "pleasant" task.
>
There are software construction skills which are entirely distinct from the
language in which you are programming. We can tout object-oriented,
structured programming, test-driven development or other software
engineering techniques, but there is a body of knowledge out there which is
orthogonal to the language in which the code is written. People who are not
professional programmers often lack those skills and their code shows it.
mentioned to me today that he was looking for online courses for Perl. (I
don't hold that against him. Perl is still a lingua franca in the sysadmin
realm.) In my work I have from time-to-time had to pick up and maintain
scripts (generally shell/Python stuff) which non-professional programmers
have written. It's never what you would call a "pleasant" task.
>
There are software construction skills which are entirely distinct from the
language in which you are programming. We can tout object-oriented,
structured programming, test-driven development or other software
engineering techniques, but there is a body of knowledge out there which is
orthogonal to the language in which the code is written. People who are not
professional programmers often lack those skills and their code shows it.
</F>