Code Complete is a highly regarded book in the software engineering industry and I approached it with pretty high expectations - however, the actual reading experience has turned into something of a nightmare for me. It took me almost a year to finish (several times seriously considering abandoning the effort), and I have to say this is probably the driest and the most boring book I've ever read.

Don't get me wrong, it's hard to find fault with the content itself - all of it is excellent advice, focusing mostly on the construction phase of software development. Unfortunately, I cannot imagine a software engineering with any amount of real-world experience who'd learn much new information reading it. Most of the chapters feel like common sense mixed with fluff and it's hard to avoid thinking this shouldn't have been a 900+ pages book.

I'd probably recommend the book to university students or to self-taught developers just starting their careers, but others would likely be wasting their time.

Every day I code, I apply a lesson I learnt from this book. It has helped a lot.

Video review here: https://youtu.be/QlY0EGWp7rw

This is a fantastic book!

I read the first edition. If you can get your hands on the second edition, I'd recommend that but even the first edition is worth reading.

Even though it's 30 years old, I'd say about 80% of the first edition is still relevant. Stuff like the nitty gritty of naming routines, how to comment, etc are evergreen topics. And McConnell did an extensive survey of all the literature, so a lot of the content is backed up with hard data about what works and what doesn't.

Highly recommended.

Praktični vodič kroz sva područja programerskog zanata. Svako poglavlje dira pojedino područje i puno je savjeta i praktičnih primjera. Autor koji se sam bavi razvojem i vođenjem projekata zastupa tezu da je programerska glava premala za količinu informacija kojom se barata u pojedinom projektu.

Programer mora kontrolirati svoju okolinu od nivoa bitova pa do zajedničkog rada više jedinica preko mreže. To je devet nivoa složenosti. Pisanjem čitljivog koda, držanje standarda, korištenje prikladnih alata lakše se savlada kompleksnost i prelazi sa nivoa na nivo.

Pročitao sam knjigu, našao sam izvučeni popis svih check lista https://www.matthewjmiller.net/files/... i sada pregledavam poglavlje po poglavlje konjige po potrebi tokom rada.

This was my second attempt to read this book. The first time was 5 years ago, just after finishing my computer science degree. At that time, I had difficulty understanding importance of the ideas presented in the book. Eventually I lost my interest and stopped reading it.

After spending some time in the industry and facing with harsh realities of software development, I decided to give it a try again. This time I gained much more insight than my first reading. Because now I had a chance to reflect on my past experiences while reading.

Even though it has been more than a decade since the book was published, I think most of the ideas presented in it still apply. The book is huge as it includes all of the stages in software development process. So it is so hard to read it from cover to cover. I suggest taking notes from each chapter while reading the book. So that you can revisit your notes from time to time in order not to forget most of the ideas.

Книга полезна разработчикам, которые хотят научиться писать качественный код. Но сама по себе в печатном издании книга очень объемна и поэтому ее не удобно читать или брать с собой, язык в ней академический, много сносок, поэтому под нее так легко уснуть. Похоже на чтение большого советского словаря) Между этой книгой и "Чистым кодом" дядюшки Боба, советую выбрать вторую.

It took me a while to read this book cover to cover, yet I cannot in good conscience recommend reading it in any other way. Yes, it's extensive. Yes, it goes into great detail. Yes, it examines the "appropriate" number of spaces between lines and comments. So I can see why some might say it's too heavy or technical. But the underlying theme of the book is introducing several core principals that every developer should have, as well as breaking some very prominent myths that can inhibit individual developers, or teams and companies as a whole, from reaching their full potential.

The book is also not as heavy as a first glance might reveal. The book is sprinkled with hilarious quotes that hammer home a certain lesson, and "hard data" blocks usually quote relevant research in the topic discussed. I found myself laughing more than once, and even sharing some quotes with other programmers.

I highly recommend this book.

McConnell uses personal experience along with hard data from many other researchers in industry and academia to show the reader how to write code quickly, efficiently, effectively, and bug-free.

I think I should have read this book straight out of my engineering degree. There is so much intricacies in the software development that people I know struggle through their life to learn. A must read for any coder who wants to stay so for the times to come(no matter what tech-tides are).
Its a very objectively written book; ideas explained will make more sense if you have already faced a software version release or have already been part of every step of the product life cycle(complex product the better).
I would suggest this book for every new grad as this fills the gap between what industry needs and what education system produces and the gap between high standard coders and the low standards.
Also I see that in India where people are oblivious to learn new tricks of this new trade(until they are forced to), there would be need to go through the book, we cannot continue to write shitty code and still be paid.
Final words; the words and ideas put in this book are perennial in nature, so it does make sense today(15/11/2017) and so would it in the times to come. Don't pick it up for experimentation. This handbook is only for people who want to know/be part of software development with full devotion.

A lot of books will tell you how to code. This is one of the few that backs its advice with research and statistics. Part of the essential developer bookshelf, right next to The Pragmatic Programmer.

Good. A little verbose, and combined with the diagrams that add nothing, I feel this book could be a hundred pages shorter.

That said, I learned a lot, and I like that his claims are mostly backed with empirical data.

This book focuses mainly on the coding and style aspects of software engineering. Any book by McConnell is worth the read.