Code Reading
Encyclopedia
Software development
Software development is the development of a software product...
book written by Diomidis Spinellis
Diomidis Spinellis
Diomidis D. Spinellis is a Greek computer science academic and author of the books Code Reading and Code Quality.Spinellis holds an MEng degree in Software Engineering and a Ph.D. in Computer Science both from Imperial College London...
.
The book is directed to programmers who want to improve their code reading abilities.
It discusses specific techniques for reading code written by others and outlines common programming concepts.
The code examples used in the book are taken from real-life software, many of them coming from the export-19980407 NetBSD
NetBSD
NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
snapshot. Although the programming language of choice is claimed to be balanced, the use of C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
to illustrate basic concepts predominates. Excerpts from important open-source code
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
systems like the
Apache
Apache HTTP Server
The Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
Web server
Web server
Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....
,
the hsqldb
HSQLDB
HSQLDB is a relational database management system written in Java. It has a JDBC driver and supports a large subset of SQL-92 and SQL:2008 standards. It offers a fast, small database engine which offers both in-memory and disk-based tables...
Java
Java (programming language)
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
relational database
Relational database
A relational database is a database that conforms to relational model theory. The software used in a relational database is called a relational database management system . Colloquial use of the term "relational database" may refer to the RDBMS software, or the relational database itself...
engine,
the NetBSD
NetBSD
NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
distribution,
the Perl
Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
language,
the Tomcat application server,
and the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
are presented.
The book covers
most concepts related to code that are likely to appear before a software developer's eyes, including
programming constructs,
data type
Data type
In computer programming, a data type is a classification identifying one of various types of data, such as floating-point, integer, or Boolean, that determines the possible values for that type; the operations that can be done on values of that type; the meaning of the data; and the way values of...
s,
data structure
Data structure
In computer science, a data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently.Different kinds of data structures are suited to different kinds of applications, and some are highly specialized to specific tasks...
s,
control flow
Control flow
In computer science, control flow refers to the order in which the individual statements, instructions, or function calls of an imperative or a declarative program are executed or evaluated....
, project organization,
coding standards,
documentation
Software documentation
Software documentation or source code documentation is written text that accompanies computer software. It either explains how it operates or how to use it, and may mean different things to people in different roles....
, and
architectures
Software architecture
The software architecture of a system is the set of structures needed to reason about the system, which comprise software elements, relations among them, and properties of both...
.
A compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
with 16 million lines of open-source code, accompanying the book, provides the context for all the presented examples.
The end chapters may be the ones of most use to advanced users, as the initial chapters delve into programming language constructs, regular expressions, etc.
The book inaugurated Addison-Wesley
Addison-Wesley
Addison-Wesley was a book publisher in Boston, Massachusetts, best known for its textbooks and computer literature. As well as publishing books, Addison-Wesley also distributed its technical titles through the Safari Books Online e-reference service...
's Effective Software Development Series, edited by Scott Meyers
Scott Meyers
Scott Douglas Meyers is an American author and software consultant, specializing in the C++ computer programming language. He is known for his Effective C++ book series. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and trade shows. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Brown University and M.S...
,
and received the 2004 Software Development Productivity Award in the “Technical Books” category.
It has been translated into Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Polish, and Russian.