Book Image

Understanding Software

By : Max Kanat-Alexander
Book Image

Understanding Software

By: Max Kanat-Alexander

Overview of this book

In Understanding Software, Max Kanat-Alexander, Technical Lead for Code Health at Google, shows you how to bring simplicity back to computer programming. Max explains to you why programmers suck, and how to suck less as a programmer. There’s just too much complex stuff in the world. Complex stuff can’t be used, and it breaks too easily. Complexity is stupid. Simplicity is smart. Understanding Software covers many areas of programming, from how to write simple code to profound insights into programming, and then how to suck less at what you do! You'll discover the problems with software complexity, the root of its causes, and how to use simplicity to create great software. You'll examine debugging like you've never done before, and how to get a handle on being happy while working in teams. Max brings a selection of carefully crafted essays, thoughts, and advice about working and succeeding in the software industry, from his legendary blog Code Simplicity. Max has crafted forty-three essays which have the power to help you avoid complexity and embrace simplicity, so you can be a happier and more successful developer. Max's technical knowledge, insight, and kindness, has earned him code guru status, and his ideas will inspire you and help refresh your approach to the challenges of being a developer.
Table of Contents (50 chapters)
Understanding Software
Credits
About the Author
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Foreword
2
The Engineer Attitude
3
The Singular Secret of the Rockstar Programmer
4
Software Design, in Two Sentences
5
Clues to Complexity
6
Ways To Create Complexity: Break Your API
7
When Is Backwards-Compatibility Not Worth It?
8
Complexity is a Prison
10
The Accuracy of Future Predictions
11
Simplicity and Strictness
12
Two is Too Many
14
What is a Bug?
24
What is a Computer?
25
The Components of Software: Structure, Action, and Results
27
Software as Knowledge
30
Simplicity and Security
34
How We Figured Out What Sucked
36
Why Programmers Suck
38
Developer Hubris
39
"Consistency" Does Not Mean "Uniformity"
42
Success Comes from Execution, Not Innovation
Index

Why Not "Lines of Code?"


Probably the most common metrics that the software industry has attempted to develop have been centered around how many lines of code (abbreviated LoC) a developer writes. I understand why people have tried to do this – it seems to be something that you can measure, so why not keep track of it? A coder who writes more code is more productive, right? Well, no. Part of the trick here is:

"Computer programmer" is not actually a job.

Wait, what? But I see ads all over the place for "programmer" as a job! Well, yes, but you also see ads for "carpenter" all over the place. But what does "a carpenter" produce? Unless you get more specific, it's hard to say. You might say that a carpenter makes "cut pieces of wood," but that's not a product – nobody's going to hire you to pointlessly cut or shape pieces of wood.

So what would be a job that "a carpenter" could do? Well, the job might be furniture repair, or building houses, or making tables. In each case, the carpenter's product...