Code Simplicity: The Fundamentals of Software

Note that this blog post announces that Code Simplicity is published as a free pdf download by the author. I'd suggest changing the title to "Code Simplicity: now free to download" or something.

I can recommend Code Simplicity. It's a very short book and provide very useful insight.

The author was a lead developer in the Bugzilla rewrite. Which seemed to be quite an adventure. And illustrates his ideas with Bugzilla's numerous maintainability issues.

I read it before starting my career as a developer, and I think it deeply influenced the way I approach writing code. It doesn't have as much as practical recommendations, but provides a helpful framework to think about how to write code and avoid general pitfalls.

I think code I wrote in my first job was praised as greatly readable only because I integrated the book's teaching before I had to learn them for myself.

Maybe it's not a "must read" for experienced devs, but I found it useful when I started.

Anyone who has read it - is it good?