Book Review: Clean Code- A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship (By Robert C. Martin)

Organizations spend millions of dollars on their software engineers for product development and to improve the skills of their programming. Every organization is willing to get the bets talent for their It department. This just reflects the huge importance of programming in the organisation.

The software engineers can write good or not so good codes. Even the bad codes can work well initially but sooner or later the bug is detected and again millions of dollars and time is spent to set the code right. Fixing up code could be even more difficult than writing sometimes than writing fresh code itself. Finding bug and fixing it up  affects the various levels of coding.First finding the bug itself is very difficult task and later on fixing it might be easier though at times. But still the coder needs to assess the effect of code change on other programs which are linked to the code being rectified. The Importance of clean coding cannot be undermined in any case. Poorly written can cause havoc to the organisation in some instances.

There is a growing awareness about professional software development now a  days . Companies and clients seek not only functional and correct code but focus is more on writing good code. The rising awareness is termed as ‘Software Craftsmanship movement’, and  Robert C. Martin, also known as ‘Uncle Bob’ seems to be  spearheading the movement .

Noted software expert Robert C. Martin presents a revolutionary paradigm with Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship . Martin has teamed up with his colleagues from Object Mentor to distill their best agile practice of cleaning code “on the fly” into a book that will instill within you the values of a software craftsman and make you a better programmer-but only if you work at it. What kind of work will you be doing? You’ll be reading code-lots of code. And you will be challenged to think about what’s right about that code, and what’s wrong with it. More importantly, you will be challenged to reassess your professional values and your commitment to your craft. Clean Code is divided into three parts. The first describes the principles, patterns, and practices of writing clean code. The second part consists of several case studies of increasing complexity. Each case study is an exercise in cleaning up code-of transforming a code base that has some problems into one that is sound and efficient. The third part is the payoff: a single chapter containing a list of heuristics and “smells” gathered while creating the case studies. The result is a knowledge base that describes the way we think when we write, read, and clean code.

Clean Code  makes some very good points like , “Never write functions longer than 15 lines! Never write functions with more than three arguments!” etc. It may seem too Java-specific in a few places,but  it is a well worth a read.

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