Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective (v. 1)

This book is a unique and essential reference that focuses upon the reading and comprehension of existing software code. While code reading is an important task faced by the vast majority of software developers, it has been virtually ignored as a discipline by existing refernces. The book fills this need with a practical presentation of all important code concepts, form, structure, and syntax that a developer is likely to encounter. The concepts are supported by examples taken from real-world open source software projects. The focus upon reading code (rather than developing and implementing programs from scratch) provides for a vastly increased breadth of coverage. The book covers anything related to code that is likely to appear before a software developer's eyes. This breadth, in conjunction with the book's practical orientation, makes it a must-have item for every software developer as a reference of first and last resort. If you are a programmer, you need this book. You've got a day to add a new feature in a 34,000-line program: Where do you start? Page 333 How can you understand and simplify an inscrutable piece of code? Page 39 Where do you start when disentangling a complicated build process? Page 167 How do you comprehend code that appears to be doing five things in parallel? Page 132 You may read code because you have to--to fix it, inspect it, or improve it. You may read code the way an engineer examines a machine--to discover what makes it tick. Or you may read code because you are scavenging--looking for material to reuse. Code-reading requires its own set of skills, and the ability to determine which technique you use when is crucial. In this indispensable book, Diomidis Spinellis uses more than 600 real-world examples to show you how to identify good (and bad) code: how to read it, what to look for, and how to use this knowledge to improve your own code. Fact: If you make a habit of reading good code, you will write better code yourself. 0201799405B02032003 Cd-rom Contains Cross-referenced Code. 1. Introduction -- 2. Basic Programming Elements -- 3. Advanced C Data Types -- 4. C Data Structures -- 5. Advanced Control Flow -- 6. Tackling Large Projects -- 7. Coding Standards And Conventions -- 8. Documentation -- 9. Architecture -- 10. Code-reading Tools -- 11. A Complete Example -- A. Outline Of The Code Provided -- B. Source Code Credits -- C. Referenced Source Files -- D. Source Code Licenses -- E. Maxims For Reading Code. Diomidis Spinellis. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 445-457) And Indexes. System Requirements For Accompanying Cd-rom: Operating System That Supports Cds With File Names Longer Than 8+3 Characters, Such As Windows 95 And Later Versions, Unix Systems Supporting The Rock Ridge Extensions, And Macintosh Systems Running Joliet Volume Access. This book is a unique and essential reference that focuses upon the reading and comprehension of existing software code. While code reading is an important task faced by the vast majority of students, it has been virtually ignored as a discipline by existing references. The book fills this need with a practical presentation of all important code concepts, form, structure, and syntax that a student is likely to encounter. The concepts are supported by examples taken from real-world open source software projects. The focus upon reading code (rather than developing and implementing programs from scratch) provides for a vastly increased breadth of coverage. Code-reading requires its own set of skills. This book uses more than 600 real-world examples to show you how to identify good and bad code: how to read it, what to look for, and how to use this knowledge to improve your own code. It is useful for programmers.