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DedicationForewordPrefaceChapter 1: A Regular Expression MatcherChapter 2: Subversion's Delta Editor: Interface As OntologyChapter 3: The Most Beautiful Code I Never WroteChapter 4: Finding ThingsChapter 5: Correct, Beautiful, Fast (in That Order): Lessons from Designing XML VerifiersChapter 6: Framework for Integrated Test: Beauty Through FragilityChapter 7: Beautiful TestsChapter 8: On-the-Fly Code Generation for Image ProcessingChapter 9: Top Down Operator PrecedenceChapter 10: The Quest for an Accelerated Population CountChapter 11: Secure Communication: The Technology Of FreedomChapter 12: Growing Beautiful Code in BioPerlChapter 13: The Design of the Gene SorteChapter 14: How Elegant Code Evolves with Hardware The Case of Gaussian EliminationChapter 15: The Long-Term Benefits of Beautiful Design Chapter 16: The Linux Kernel Driver Model: The Benefits of Working TogetherChapter 17: Another Level of IndirectionChapter 18: Python's Dictionary Implementation: Being All Things to All PeopleChapter 19: Multidimensional Iterators in NumPyChapter 20: A Highly Reliable Enterprise System for NASA's Mars Rover MissionChapter 21: ERP5: Designing for Maximum AdaptabilityChapter 22: A Spoonful of SewageChapter 23: Distributed Programming with MapReduceChapter 24: Beautiful ConcurrencyChapter 25: Syntactic Abstraction: The syntax-case ExpanderChapter 26: Labor-Saving Architecture: An Object-Oriented Framework for Networked SoftwareChapter 27: Integrating Business Partners the RESTful WayChapter 28: Beautiful DebuggingChapter 29: Treating Code As an EssayChapter 30: When a Button Is All That Connects You to the WorldChapter 31: Emacspeak: The Complete Audio DesktopChapter 32: Code in MotionChapter 33: Writing Programs for "The Book"AfterwordContributorsColophon
Greg Wilson holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Edinburgh, and has worked on high-performance scientific computing, data visualization, and computer security. He is the author of Data Crunching and Practical Parallel Programming (MIT Press, 1995), and is a contributing editor at Doctor Dobb's Journal, and an adjunct professor in Computer Science at the University of Toronto.
Andy Oram is an editor at O'Reilly Media, a highly respected book publisher and technology information provider. An employee of the company since 1992, Andy currently specializes in free software and open source technologies. His work for O'Reilly includes the first books ever published commercially in the United States on Linux, and the 2001 title Peer-to-Peer. His modest programming and system administration skills are mostly self-taught.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Angela Flaherty
reviewed Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think on December 27, 2007
Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think
Beautiful Code is another non-animal O'Reilly volume, with high aspirations. As the sleeve submits: "How do the experts solve difficult problems in software development?" If this book (or any) had been able to have answered that question, reading it would be a head-spinning experience indeed.
The book's chapters are each the domain of a different prominent software developer or writer, and several are elegant outlines of what is unarguably some of the best code out there - Apache Webserver, Quicksort, and the Python interpreter. Ostensibly, the authors are talented beyond measure; the lack of a cohesive theme, a unified structure, or an overall purpose the book quickly becomes a showcase of beautiful code-essays submitted by thirty-couple completely dissonant geniuses. The fact that the book still contains not much other than what it claims is no invitation for criticism. If you want to see real kung fu code, this is your book.
The potential disparities hide in between the lines, where compilers do not tarry. Few of the essays touch on why the code is elegant, or how it got to be the way it was. Most of them wander around what problem is solved by the code, some delve deep into the minutiae of the problem, and a few contain no code at all. This last set could have been chosen to present a semblance of organization, to have pulled loose ends together and formed some conceptual continuity among a wide variety of articles, but in their current states and places even these well-intended 'theories of code beauty' ruminations are ineffectual.
If a computer scientist was so riveted by unpolished essays surrounding the world's best algorithmic hacks that they failed to notice that no new information was gained, no statements beyond the cold, functional truth were made, no concessions given to that imaginative side of the brain that, when it is given the occasional chance to influence the gnarled digits of a perl hacker, results in that big win that was sought after in wake and sleep for a week and doubles the maintainability and efficiency of some project, then that reader will be satisfied to the fullest extent.
For the rest of us, this book was no great failure but no revelation, and is deserving of its place on the shelf. And the geeks among geeks, the hackers who would have found a book closer to Hackers and Painters, held it and shook it until C code fell out, will no doubt appreciate this book.
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Add Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think, How do the experts solve difficult problems in software development? In this unique and insightful book, leading computer scientists offer case studies that reveal how they found unusual, carefully designed solutions to high-profile projects. You will be , Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
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Add Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think, How do the experts solve difficult problems in software development? In this unique and insightful book, leading computer scientists offer case studies that reveal how they found unusual, carefully designed solutions to high-profile projects. You will be , Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think to your collection on WonderClub |
