The Art of Unix Programming
I’m currently reading The Art of Unix Programming by Eric Raymond. I’d recommend it to any programmer (not just Unix programmers) who is looking for insights a little higher than code level but not so abstract as to be meaningless platitudes.
I especially liked his critique of Object Oriented Languages. For example he says:
OO languages make abstraction easy — perhaps too easy. They encourage architectures with thick glue and elaborate layers. This can be good when the problem domain is truly complex and demands a lot of abstraction, but it can backfire badly if coders end up doing simple things in complex ways just because they can.
It’s something I’ve come across many times. Using OO techniques when they are not really necessary can create more problems than they solve. The buzzword value of OO makes this a very common occurrence.
You can read the book online but it’s worth buying the print version.
Mark Waters marked time at 9:44 pm on September 29th, 2004 .
