programming and human factors
by Jeff Atwood
I'll be attending SDWest 2006 all next week (March 13 - 17) in Santa Clara, California.
If you're attending, let's meet up somewhere! I've met a handful of people in person at past conferences:
The highlight of SDWest, however, will hopefully be meeting Steve McConnell, who is giving the keynote on Monday.
McConnell was my first coding hero.*
I discovered his book Code Complete in 1994 and it was a revelation. Programming is such a solitary pursuit, and particularly so in those pre-internet days. In Code Complete, I found an amazingly passionate, incredibly literate, and consummately professional programmer to learn from. Code Complete convinced me that writing software is what I want to do for the rest of my life. The book-- now upgraded to version 2.0-- has been my bible ever since.
Update: Steve was very gracious, talking at some length with me both before and after his keynote. He even signed my copy of Code Complete 2. As he said, "I guess I should sign on a page with a Coding Horror":
Who are your coding heroes-- and why?
* and hey, I'm not the only one.
I have to agree that Tog writes pretty well and is fun to read. I also really liked Maguire's line of thinking in writing solid code: "How can I automate finding this type of error next time?"
I can also tell you who my anti-hero is. Charles Petzold. That book he wrote on how to develop Windows apps is one of the worst, and has caused so much bad development in the Windows world. I just cringe every time I think about it.
Darrin on March 9, 2006 1:25 AMMy first Coding Hero, also pre-Internet, was Francesco Balena. I bought a book on advanced Visual Basic 6 by him, and the guy managed to convince me that I could walk proudly among my peers, even though I wrote code in _that_ language everybody despised. As Chuck Yeager, another one of my heroes, used to say: "Remember, it's the man, not the machine".
Codecruncher on March 9, 2006 3:52 AMearliest was probably whoever wrote BMD.
next, Gus Bjorkland, for creating Progress.
lastly, and most lastingly, Allen Holub. *everyone* must read his "Bank of Allen" series. the most cogent and succinct explanation of what OO programming should be. an antidote for Bean Programming.
Buggy Fun Bunny on March 9, 2006 5:15 AM
Not my first and perhaps not the one I'm most influenced by at the moment, but the one that springs to mind is:
Joshua Bloch [formerly Sun, now Google], writer of "Effective java". I've seen him live on JavaOne as well, very good at giving lectures.
regards,
martin
Scott Knasters. I started on a Mac.
Harold on March 9, 2006 8:51 AMIn addition to McConnell: Steve Maguire (Debugging the Development Process) and Jim McCarthy (Dynamics of Software Development). These other two talked about the people as well as the nuts and bolts of coding, and they spoke in very human voices.
Microsoft Press's finest books, ever. They put these books out in a box I think, together with McConnell's RAD book.
Eric Raymond, for putting together the New Hacker's Dictionary. I learned a lot of attitude and code aesthetics from that dictionary.
Christian Mogensen on March 9, 2006 9:12 AMMcConnell, for me, is more of a writing hero than a coding hero, but I'm otherwise in agreement. To his name and Maguire's, add Scott Meyers, Bruce Tognazzini, and Kent Beck.
Carl Manaster on March 9, 2006 9:36 AMOddly enough, my own personal code hero would have to be Robert Pirsig. Myself, I never came across any truly inspirational books about programming, though the one Pirsing wrote about motorcycling seems to have captured the a lot of the philosophy behind it fairly well.
Richard on March 9, 2006 9:59 AMI heart Jeff Atwood. That guy rocks!
Haacked on March 9, 2006 10:42 AMI second (or maybe it's third or fourth by now) McConnell. His book is all that and then some.
I'm throwing in another vote for Francesco...his book on VB6 is one of the best books on programming ever.
I'm tossing out Alan Cooper as my third hero. All you have to do is read his stuff and slap your head....I do it all the time.
Oh and that Atwood guy.....he's awesome too!
Mike Shaffer on March 9, 2006 12:08 PMMy first Coding Hero, also pre-Internet, was Francesco Balena.
I am also a huge Balena fan for the same reason. Have you been to his blog? It's excellent:
http://www.dotnet2themax.com/blogs/fbalena/
I'm tossing out Alan Cooper as my third hero
I like Cooper, but I found that About Face 2.0 was a *much* better version of the book because it has a second author in the credits. Cooper's got great ideas, but sometimes he's a bit too much of a blowhard for his own good.
Jeff Atwood on March 9, 2006 12:39 PMMy inspiration to program came from my brother. Save from that, there are none that spring to mind as being particulaly inspirational. I did read a very well written article on programing for WPF the other day, but I forget the author or where it's from.
[ICR] on March 10, 2006 3:05 AMCode Complete was an excellent book. I too found it incredibly well written and very informative.
SteveMcConnell++
Dave Anderson
a href="http://www.pirootofpi.com/blog/"http://www.pirootofpi.com/blog//a
"The Two Steve's" were my original Gurus.
Right now, my top 3 are
Michael Feathers "Working effectively with legacy code"
Craig Larman "Agile Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide"
and
Alan Shalloway James Trott for "Design Patterns Explained"
I'd have to say Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas. Their _Pragmatic Programmer_ really inspired me to take my craft seriously. Prior to reading it, I had adopted a more or less haphazard approach. Afterwards, I've exerted a constant effort to better myself.
Bill Brown on March 14, 2006 2:32 AMDoh - can't believe I forgot that one. "Pragmatic Programming" is such a great book on the practice. The nuts and bolts of programming. Great stuff and so succinctly written too.
"Debugging" by David Agans is a really good primer on the flip-side of programming. Debugging can be haphazard and scattershot, just like programming. This book encourages you to be methodical and scientific. Great stuff, and full of little anecdotes to make the medicine go down.
Christian Mogensen on March 15, 2006 8:25 AMSteve McConnell was on of the first people who have really inspired me to write good and tructured good. I think my whole perception about programming changed after reading his book.
And he is a great guy too!
Oh, and Jeff Atwood has nice insights too which makes him one of my coding heroes! :D
Keith Rull on March 23, 2006 2:31 AMDonald Knuth, of course, with his still unfinished magnum opus, "The Art of Computer Programming". There are others, they will come to mind shortly.
Anonymous Coward Esq on June 26, 2006 5:02 AMI got to meet Steve McConnell for the first time last week, at a Construx training seminar. Like you, he was my first coding hero, and remains a giant in the field.
Anthony Stevens on September 19, 2008 1:56 PMCal Henderson, Woz and Michael Abrash. Still haven't met any of them in person :(
Gil Megidish on September 20, 2008 3:03 AMSteve McConnell for Code Complete and Robert Martin for Clean Code. If you have not heard Robert Martin speak yet you should find some way to. It is very inspiring to hear him talk about craftsmanship and professionalism.
Ryan Schultz on September 20, 2008 1:43 PMI'd like to meet him myself. Great stuff.
(is it okay that I chuckled at his typo?)
Eugene B. on September 27, 2008 11:34 AMScott Meyers. Without a doubt. Showed me beauty.
Orbfish on June 10, 2010 10:08 AMThe comments to this entry are closed.
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