Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction

This book is quite simply a must read for anyone in the programming field. The chapter on debugging is worth its weight in gold. My copy is riddled with sticky notes marking key topics. McConnell's writing style is entertaining and very educational; he says what he needs to say and doesn't bore you along the way. There is really no other way to put it: if you must buy one programming book this is it, at least until the third edition comes out.

Buy it. Study it. Live IT. Your career will take off because of the insight provided.

If you're looking for a humorous, clever tome about coding, this is not your book. If, however, you are looking for thorough, well laid out, research-backed coding solutions and advice, then this book is an excellent addition to your library. The examples are based upon C, but suggestions are readily understandable by coders using any OOP compiler.

My only disappointment was to find that some coding practices I've been using for the last 10 years or so he is now recommending against. Actually a few of them I would be glad to give up (large comment blocks at the beginning of scripts) but others are well ingrained. I can see his argument, but it will take a while for this old dog to relearn those new tricks.

If you are writing software today (I don't care what language you are using, or what hardware) you should own -- and read -- this book. I have not found any other book that even compares.

It goes through how to write maintainable, readable code, with excellent descriptions of why to code that way. Plus it is language agnostic (the book uses a couple of languages for illustration purposes, but you have to start somewhere).

One side note: if you are doing function programming, pick up the first version of this book. This version was written for all of the object oriented languages out there.