Wow, there's just so much valuable information in this book. I borrowed it off a friend, but I'm certainly going to need to buy this for reference.
How to program deliberately:
- Always be aware of what you are doing.
- Don't code blindfolded.
- Proceed from a plan.
- Rely only on reliable things.
- Document your assumptions.
- Don't just test your code, test your assumptions as well.
- Prioritize your effort.
- Don't be a slave to history.
Our goal is to think declaratively (specifying what is to be done, not how) and create highly dynamic and adaptable programs. We do this by adopting a general rule: program for the general case, and put the specifics somewhere else-outside the compiled code base.
Use metadata to describe configuration options for an application: tuning parameters, user preferences, the installation directory, and so on. [...] Typically, metadata is accessed and used at runtime, not at compile time.
The Law of Demeter for functions states that any method of an object should call only methods belonging to: itself, any parameters that were passed in to the method, any objects it created, and any directly held component objects.
Traversing relationships between objects directly can quickly lead to a combinatorial explosion [If n objects all know about each other, then a change to just one object can result in the other n - 1 objects needing changes.] of dependency relationships.
It's much easier to find and diagnose the problem by crashing early, at the site of the problem.
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana, Life of Reason
Additional information
- Pages: 352
- ISBN: 020161622X
- EAN: 9780201616224
- Dewey: 005.1
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
...IANACS
elena replies...
Liking what I'm reading but in my heart I know I'm out of my depth.