Sunday, November 15, 2015

book reading: 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know (I)

Nov. 15, 2015.

 I like to tell how I get here to read this book - 97 things every programmer should know. It is a long story, but it can be described as this flow:

Julia works on leetcode questions (January 2015) ->
Challenged on August, 2015 about SOLID OO principles (Only know / remember S, basic decoupling, work on interface)
-> procedural code's concern, try to follow DRY principles, Oct. 2015
-> Learn SOLID priciples through videos in Nov., 2015:
-> Recommended reading: the book

Spent 3 hours to read the book on Sunday morning, take some notes about my favorite ideas:

1. Act with prudence - Seb Rose

"doing it right"   vs "doing it quick"

Julia's comment: thinking about it later :-)  Prudence means " be careful".

2. Apply Functional Programming Principles - Edward Garson

Julia's comment:
   Look into the term: "high degree of referential transparency"
   Questions from Julia, list a 3-5 principles of functional programming principles, most popular ones.

3.  Ask, "What Would the User Do?" (You are not the user) - Giles Colborne
Julia's comment:
     Look up the term: the false consensus bias - psychologists call it.

4. Automate your coding Standard - Filip van Laenen

Julia's comment: Look up the meaning of "antipatterns", things talked about are interesting: test coverage, coding standard. Read the article later.

5. Beauty is in simplicity - Jorn Olmheim

Julia's comment: Four things we strive for in our code:
   Readability (1), maintainability (2), speed of development (3), the elusive quality of beauty (4)
Simple objects with a single responsibility, with simple, focused methods with descriptive names.
Desirable goal is to have short methods of 5-10 lines of code. (Julia likes this argument!)

6. Before you refactor - Rajith Attapattu

Julia's comment: great topic, and good to hear some advice.

7. Beware the Share - Udi Dahan

8. The Boy Scout Rule - Robert C. Martin (Uncle Bob)

Julia's favorite: Make it better: improve name of one variable, or split one function into two smaller functions. Or break a circular dependency, or add an interface to decouple policy from detail.

And more about team spirit, help one another and clean up after one another.

9. Check Your Code First before looking to blame others - Allan Kelly
    Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
    http://www.allankelly.net/

10. Choose Your tools with Care - Giovanni Asproni
      existing tools - components, libraries, and frameworks
http://www.atlantec.ie/giovanni-asproni-to-be-added/
 
11. Code in the language of the Domain - Dan North
consulting service:
http://dannorth.net/about/

12. Code is Design - Ryan Brush
http://conferences.oreilly.com/strata/stratany2014/public/schedule/speaker/138579

13. Code layout matters - Steve Freeman

Julia is still working on the code layout; she thinks that the good layout helps, her favorite book: the art of readable code

15. Code Reviews - Mattias Karlsson
 Code review - increase code quality and reduce defect rate.

used to be:  Lead programmer does the review, architect reviews everything.

16 Coding with Reason - Yechiel Kimchi

http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Coding_with_Reason

Julia likes the idea -
1. Try to reason about software correctness by hand
2. Automated tools are preferable but not always possible
3. a middle path - reasoning semiformally about correctness
    Julia likes this middle path, in detail,
   To divide all the code under consideration into short sections - from a single line, such as a function call, to blocks of less than 10 lines - and argue about their correctness.

Julia likes to memorize those good advices, so just write it down word by word.
1. Avoid using goto statements, as they make remote sections highly interdependent.
2. Avoid using modifiable global variables, as they make all sections that use them dependent.
3. Each variable should have the smallest possible scope. For example, a local object can be declared right before its first usage.
4. Make objects immutable when relevant.
5. Make the code readable using spacing, both horizontal and vertical.
6. Make the code self-documenting by choosing descriptive name for objects, types, functions, etc.
7. If you need a nested section, make it a function. <- Julia's favorite: avoid nested section, add a function
8. Make your functions short and focus on a single task. <-  great advice, obey it.
The old 24-line limit still applies. Although screen size and resolution have changed, nothing has changed in human cognition since 1960s. ( 24 lines, Julia can do it! )
9. Function should have few parameters ( four is a good upper bound). This does not restrict the data communicated to functions: Grouping related parameters into a single object benefits from object invariants and saves reasoning, such as their coherence and consistency.

17. Convenience is Not an -ility - Gregor Hohpe

It is a great topic about API design. A good API follows a consistent level of abstraction, exhibits consistency and symmetry, and forms the vocabulary for an expressive language.

API design reading, found one through search:
http://lcsd05.cs.tamu.edu/slides/keynote.pdf

18. Deliberate practice

Leading Lean Software Development (Addison-Wesley Professional)

19. Domain-Specific Languages

https://about.me/mhunger

20 Do not afraid to break things - Mike Lewis

21. Encapsulate Behavior, Not just State - Julia's favorite article

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Einar_Landre/publications

http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Encapsulate_Behavior,_not_Just_State

Examples:
  It is easy to find a class with a single 3,000-line main method, or a class with only set and get method for its primitive attributes.
Analysis: do not understand the object-oriented thinking, do not take advantage of the power of objects as modeling constructs.

Given an example, 3 classes: Customer, Order, and Item.
A Customer  object is the natural placeholder for the credit limit and credit validation rules.
An Order object knows about its associated Customer, and its addItem operation delegates the actual credit check by calling customer.ValidateCredit(Item.Price()).

Less experienced OO developer, design one objects: OrderManager or OrderService to wrap all business rules. In the design, Order, Customer, and Item are treated as little more than record types.
All logic is factored out of the classes and tied together in one large, procedural method with a lot of internal if-then-else constructs.

But, these methods are easily broken and almost are impossible to maintain. Because encapsulation is broken.

22. Hard work does not pay off - Olve Maudal

23. Know your limits
http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_34_0/people/greg_colvin.htm

24. A message to the Future - Linda Rising

Her website:
http://www.lindarising.org/

Julia really likes the short story written in the chapter. The problem solved is difficult, and the solution should be just as difficult for everyone (maybe even for themselves a few months after the code was written) to understand and maintain. But, the code should be easy to understand.

25. Only the code tells the truth - Peter Sommerlad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLsZkA77h8c
Notes from video:
Less code = More Software
Let Julia read those sentences and laugh about mistakes she made as well:
1. Complexity is one of the biggest problems with software if not THE biggest.
2. It is much easier to create a complicated "solution" than to really solve a problem.
3. Much software complexity is accidental not inherent to the problem solved.
4. It starts in the small, one statement at a time.
5. Architects and developers need to value Simplicity!
  . Good Abstractions are the key, as are
  . Managing Dependencies (Avoid global variables)
6. Software needs to be simpler to solve more complex problems.
7. Simple software requires work and skill but pays off in the long run.

Famous Quotes by Sir C.A.R. (Tony) Hoare
1. Inside every large problem, there is a small program trying to get out.
2. There are two ways of constructing a software design:
   1. one way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and
   2. the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
   The first method is far more difficult.

Good advice:

 1. Strive for good names.
 2. Structure your code with respect to cohesive functionality, which also naming.
 3. Decouple your code to achieve orthogonality.
 4. Write automated tests explaining the intended behavior and check the interfaces.
 5. Refactor mercilessly when you learn how to code a simpler, better solution.
 6. Make your code as simple as possible to read the understand.

- to be continued.

More reading about authors:

1.  Enjoy reading the blog of one of authors:

To junior developer:

http://dearjunior.blogspot.ca/2014/11/make-implicit-concepts-explicit-in-code.html

Note:

Eric Evans, the thought leader of Domain Driven Design.

http://dearjunior.blogspot.ca/2012/03/dry-and-false-negatives.html


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