The Art of Readable Code

Have you ever wonder what was the best comment to write? Have you ever had to read twice the same code to understand what that was about? Don’t worry this book is for you!

Cover of the book "The Art of Readable Code"

The Art of Readable code for rescue

While I’m writing code some times I ask to myself if the name I gave to that variable was the right or if was the best choice to put that name The art of readable code is about that and much more. With simple images in the beginning of each chapter the author caught my attention to dive deep into the subject as well as the simple vocabulary.

The book is pretty much technical so I suggest if you’re not a programmer with medium skills in any language the book will become a boring read.

I would like to highlight these sections below of the book:

Chapter 1 - What makes code “better”?

We can define as a code good or not based on our experience or knowledge, although, it is not the right decision. Each person has your level and each team has your own code style, particularities and so on. So while reading this book keep it in mind it will be the base line.

Part I. Surface-Level Improvements

“We begin our tour of readability with what we consider “surface-level” improvements: picking good names, writing good comments, and formatting your code neatly. These types of changes are easy to apply”

Dustin Boswell and Trevor Foucher, The Art of Readable Code

Part II. Simplifying Loops and Logic

The greatest lesson that we can learn from this session is: KEEP IT SIMPLE! As much as you create nested loops and statement conditions the code will become hard to read and understand.

Part III. Reorganizing Your Code

As developers we are constantly trying to write the best code that we can but sometimes it is not possible. The deadline was too close or the priority at the time was other, but we can always refactor our code and reorganize.

Where does I find it?

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/9780596802301.do