Code Complete

What Hacker News says

1. Ozzie_osmanOct 2026
   "You will love this next piece of software. Completely hand-made. Each line of code, each piece of the visual design, was carefully and artisinally crafted by a real human, using techniques passed down for generations between craftsmen. Some of those techniques survive in books like Code Complete and such. They don't make 'em like this anymore. "
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2. meeritaAug 2026
   "Code Complete" by Steve McConnell is a good option for those who want to improve their development practices.
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3. bsolesAug 2026
   This comment cannot be overstated. Armchair "software engineers" like them do a lot of disservice to the community by promoting non-workable solutions in real production environments.

   On the other side, I still consider McConnell's Code Complete to be a gem.

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4. francisofasciiAug 2026
   FWIW, here are the books I bought over that years that people would always say you should read. I would say some of the principles might be out of date, wrong, or overkill, but a good goal is to be at least familiar with them.

   The Pragmatic Programmer, Design Patterns (or some Gang of 4 book), Clean Code, Code Complete

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5. cpetersoAug 2026
   This approach reminds me of PDL (Program Design Language), described in Steve McConnell's excellent book Code Complete (1993). He recommended writing code using PDL pseudocode first. People can review your PDL before you write the code implementing the PDL, leaving the PDL as code comments.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_Design_Language

   https://codecourse.sourceforge.net/materials/Code-Complete-A...

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6. jdw64Jun 2026
   AI code usually creates fake 'cohesion.' It looks good on the surface. But in reality, it's often just optimized for the moment, weak to change. After reading Code Complete 4 or 5 times, I became obsessed with the idea that I need to balance cohesion and coupling. AI code has strong local cohesion, but when you look at the overall cohesion, it's weak.

   True cohesion is usually about 'things that change for the same reason are grouped together.' But the fake cohesion that AI creates is usually this: 'Neatly organize the given requirements for now.'

   On the surface, it just repeats obvious hexagonal or clean architecture patterns like Service, Manager, Handler, Validator, Repository. But the problem is that human code does the same thing. Honestly, I don't trust most people on HN who claim they're different. Even the enterprise code I've bought and the real big-company code I've seen don't have perfectly beautiful separation.

   And that's natural. Modeling is always unstable. A single word from a PM saying 'we need to add a coupon' can break a beautifully designed domain.

   AI often puts UserService and UserValidator into its structures, but in reality, the reasons for change aren't just one. They bundle multiple reasons together. There's just some flawed modeling.

   But what matters is something else. It fits the 'current' input well. When you start digging deeper into the prompt, AI ends up turning the code into enterprise patterns based on the depth of meaning it parsed. And then this problem arises.

   Human programmers usually don't have uniform code quality. Of course not. You and I are only deep in our own areas of expertise; outside of that, we're terribly shallow. But AI tries to fix other areas based on the deepest part. That results in verbose and cumbersome code. Small, elegant code becomes verbose, flat, and turns into the patterns we've all seen before.

   But I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Why? Because realistically, I think it's better in the long run. The uniform enterprise patterns that AI produces are ultimately predictable and searchable.

   Top-quality code deviates from the average. That makes it hard to predict. But that's not my level. So I think that when genius programmers contribute to the world through libraries and frameworks, people like me, who aren't talented, build things with them. And for that, predictable code is more than enough.

   AI code is easier for AI to read and fix later. Human code is harder to predict. That makes it harder for me to maintain. In the garden of open source, people obsess over 'good code' quality, but for me, if I fail, the work stops coming.

   The difference between you and me is that you're a better programmer than I am, and I'm just a beginner who's more indifferent to that performance gap. We value different things. And I think your perspective is more 'programmer-like.' I respect it.

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