The elements of programming style
Expression. Control structure. Program structure. Input and output. Common blunders. Efficiency and instrumentation. Documentation.
Stats for nerds
30recommend
96mentions
69people
2008–2026years
40% recommend58% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Literally 50 years of engineering history and culture cares about whether code is good. There are libraries worth of books about it, not as a means to an app but for its own beauty. Just read “The Elements of Programming Style”, for example.
Do what you want, write apps with AI and don’t review code, it doesn’t impact me. The claim that no one cares about good code is demonstrably false, and that’s all I’m objecting to.
- Before you read this, read "The Elements of Programming Style" by Brian Kernighan and P. J. Plauger.
- Just dropping in to say that The Elements of Programming Style is worth reading three times — and I have read it many more times than that, and benefitted from it. Here's my review (from 2010) if you're interested: https://reprog.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/programming-books-pa...
- I read the Elements of Programming Style and the Practice of Programming around the same time and they became completely mixed up in my mind. I'll often remember something from one of those books but be completely unable to remember which one it was from.
Both good books, and both were co-authored by Kernighan. I think they complement each other well.
- Well if you're interested, the Elements of Programming Style, to me, was interesting for two reasons. It presents plenty of timeless insights about programming, but it's also very interesting as a historical document; it argues against old-fashioned GOTO-based programming in favour of structured programming, and for-loops executing 0 times, for example.
It has a list of rules of thumb at the end, which contains my favourite part of the book. Pretty much all of them are timeless, but right in the middle is "Avoid the FORTRAN arithmetic if."
The one big thing I disagree with it on is the weird idea that you should never have 2 IFs in a row.
- The Elements of Programming Style by Kernighan and Plauger
Software Tools by Kernighan and Plauger
The Psychology of Computer Programming by Weinberg
A cartoon-illustrated DIY Honda Civic repair book from the 80's I no longer remember the name of.
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