Sign-In
Cart
The Rules of Programming: How to Write Better Code
Paperback
Publisher Price: $45.99
ISBN13: 9781098133115
Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Published: Jan 17 2023
Pages: 343
Weight: 1.10
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.90 Depth: 8.90
Language: English
This philosophy-of-programming guide presents a unique and entertaining take on how to think about programming. A collection of 21 pragmatic rules, each presented in a standalone chapter, captures the essential wisdom that every freshly minted programmer needs to know and provides thought-provoking insights for more seasoned programmers.
Author Chris Zimmerman, cofounder of the video game studio Sucker Punch Productions, teaches basic truths of programming by wrapping them in memorable aphorisms and driving them home with examples drawn from real code. This practical guide also helps managers looking for ways to train new team members.
The rules in this book include:
- As simple as possible, but no simpler
- Let your code tell its own story
- Localize complexity
- Generalization takes three examples
- Work backward from your result, not forward from your code
- The first lesson of optimization is don't optimize
- A good name is the best documentation
- Bugs are contagious
- Eliminate failure cases
- Code that isn't running doesn't work
- Sometimes you just need to hammer the nails
2 different editions
Also available
Also from
Zimmerman, Chris
Also in
Programming
Interactive Theorem Proving and Program Development: Coq'art: The Calculus of Inductive Constructions
Castéran, Pierre
Bertot, Yves
Hardcover
The Legend of Zelda(tm) Tears of the Kingdom - The Complete Official Guide: Collector's Edition
Piggyback
Hardcover
Python Crash Course, 3rd Edition: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming
Matthes, Eric
Paperback
The Legend of Zelda(tm) Tears of the Kingdom - The Complete Official Guide: Standard Edition
Piggyback
Paperback
Crisis Engineering: Time-Tested Tools for Turning Chaos Into Clarity
Nitze, Marina
Dickerson, Mikey
Weaver, Matthew
Paperback
Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations
Kim, Gene
Forsgren Phd, Nicole
Humble, Jez
Paperback
Embedded Systems with ARM Cortex-M Microcontrollers in Assembly Language and C: Fourth Edition
Zhu, Yifeng
Paperback
Make: Electronics: Learning by Discovery: A Hands-On Primer for the New Electronics Enthusiast
Platt, Charles
Paperback
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: A Modern Engineering Approach
Richards, Mark
Ford, Neal
Paperback
Vibe Coding: Building Production-Grade Software with Genai, Chat, Agents, and Beyond
Kim, Gene
Yegge, Steve
Paperback
The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
Fournier, Camille
Paperback
AI Projects with Raspberry Pi: High-Performance Artificial Intelligence for Robotics, Security, Home Automation, and Vision
Jepson, Brian
Hattersley, Lucy
Paperback
I Have an App Idea: The Essential Guide to Building an App Without Tech Skills
Spann, Amanda
Paperback
The Return on AI: From Promise to Profit in the Age of Intelligent Business
Mittal, Ashwin
Sawhney, Mohanbir
Paperback
The Devops Handbook, 2nd Edition: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, & Security in Technology Organizations
Debois, Patrick
Kim, Gene
Humble, Jez
Paperback
The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change
Reilly, Tanya
Paperback
The Developer's Guide to AI: A Field Guide for the Working Developer
Thompson, Danny
Orshalick, Jacob
Reghunadh, Jerry M.
Paperback
Building Applications with AI Agents: Designing and Implementing Multiagent Systems
Albada, Michael
Paperback
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
Leng, Christof
Beyer, Betsy
Jones, Chris
Paperback
Software Architecture: The Hard Parts: Modern Trade-Off Analyses for Distributed Architectures
Ford, Neal
Richards, Mark
Sadalage, Pramod
Paperback
Cracking the Coding Interview: 189 Programming Questions and Solutions
McDowell, Gayle Laakmann
Paperback
Observability Engineering: Achieving Production Excellence
Fong-Jones, Liz
Miranda, George
Majors, Charity
Paperback
Forecasting: Principles and Practice, the Pythonic Way
Athanasopoulos, George
Hyndman, Rob J.
Paperback
Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to Html, Css, Javascript, and Web Images
Robbins, Jennifer
Paperback
Building Safer Technology: A Field Guide to Failing Well
Kissner, Lea
Zunger, Yonatan
Coles, Neil
Paperback
The New AI Cold War: Liberty vs. Tyranny in the Age of Machine Empires
Maginnis, Ltc Robert L.
Paperback
Linux Basics for Hackers, 2nd Edition: Getting Started with Networking, Scripting, and Security in Kali
Occupytheweb
Paperback
The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition
Thomas, David
Hunt, Andrew
Hardcover
SQL QuickStart Guide: The Simplified Beginner's Guide to Managing, Analyzing, and Manipulating Data With SQL
Shields, Walter
Hardcover
A Human's Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control
Hosanagar, Kartik
Paperback
Grokking Algorithms, Second Edition: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People
Bhargava, Aditya Y.
Paperback
Generative AI Design Patterns: Solutions to Common Challenges When Building Genai Agents and Applications
Hapke, Hannes
Lakshmanan, Valliappa
Paperback
The Official Raspberry Pi Handbook 2026: Astounding Projects with Raspberry Pi Computers
Makers of Raspberry Pi Official Magazine, The
Paperback
Concrete Mathematics: A Foundation for Computer Science
Graham, Ronald
Patashnik, Oren
Knuth, Donald
Hardcover
Learning Domain-Driven Design: Aligning Software Architecture and Business Strategy
Khononov, Vlad
Paperback
Building Resilient Distributed Systems: Patterns and Practices for Stable Software
Newman, Sam
Paperback
Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented Software
Robson, Elisabeth
Freeman, Eric
Paperback
The Software Architect Elevator: Redefining the Architect's Role in the Digital Enterprise
Hohpe, Gregor
Paperback
Learning Generative AI Tools for Excel: Speed Up Your Everyday Tasks with Microsoft Excel, Copilot, Chatgpt, and Beyond
Duca, Angelica Lo
Paperback
Java in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference
Evans, Benjamin J.
Clark, Jason R.
Flanagan, David
Paperback
Signals & Levers: Systems Thinking Tools to Unblock Software Delivery
Tosi, Joel
Hendrickson, Elisabeth
Paperback
Arduino Programming for Beginners: A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide to Learn the Realms of Arduino Programming from A-Z
Protosmith, Ada
Paperback
Building AI-Powered Products: The Essential Guide to AI and Genai Product Management
Nika, Marily
Paperback
Build an AI Agent (from Scratch): Agents That Reason, Plan, and ACT Autonomously
Hur, Jungjun
Song, Younghee
Paperback
Debugging: The 9 Indispensable Rules for Finding Even the Most Elusive Software and Hardware Problems
Agans, David J.
Paperback
Inteligencia Artificial Con Python: Sistemas de aprendizaje, Machine Learning y Deep Learning explicados de forma clara y práctica.
Selles Rodenas, Juan Ignacio
Paperback
AI Agents with MCP: Model Context Protocol for Building Clients, Servers, and End-To-End Agents
Stratis, Kyle
Paperback
Frictionless: 7 Steps to Remove Barriers, Unlock Value, and Outpace Your Competition in the AI Era
Noda, Abi
Forsgren, Nicole
Paperback
Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time
Wright, Hyrum
Winters, Titus
Manshreck, Tom
Paperback
Living a Jewish Life, Revised and Updated: Jewish Traditions, Customs, and Values for Today's Families
Cooper, Howard
Diamant, Anita
Paperback
Learning Php, MySQL & JavaScript: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Dynamic Websites
Nixon, Robin
Paperback
Python Programming for Young Coders: A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Coding for Beginners, Kids, and Teens
Pandey, Anand
Paperback
Programming Massively Parallel Processors: A Hands-On Approach
Kirk, David B.
El Hajj, Izzat
Hwu, Wen-Mei W.
Paperback
Computer Science from Scratch: Building Interpreters, Art, Emulators and ML in Python
Kopec, David
Paperback
Adobe Photoshop, 2nd Edition: A Complete Course and Compendium of Features
Laskevitch, Stephen
Paperback
Evals for AI Engineers: Systematically Measuring and Improving AI Applications
Shankar, Shreya
Husain, Hamel
Paperback
Certified Associate in Project Management (Capm)(R) Exam Official Cert Guide
Thomas, Arthur
Lechler, Thomas
Kanabar, Vijay
Paperback
Kubernetes in Action, Second Edition: Deploying and Managing Containers and Cloud-Native Applications
Luksa, Marko
Conner, Kevin
Paperback