The Elements of Programming Style: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|1978 book by Brian W. Kernighan and P. J. Plauger}}

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# Don't patch bad code – rewrite it.

# Write and test a big program in small pieces.

# Use recursive procedures for recursively- defined data structures.

# Test input for plausibility and validity.

# Make sure input doesn't violate the limits of the program.

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# Format a program to help the reader understand it.

# Document your data layouts.

# Don't over-comment.

Modern readers may find it a shortcoming that its examples use older [[procedural programming languages]] ([[Fortran]] and [[PL/I]]) whichthat are quite different from those popular today. Few of today's popular languages had been invented when this book was written. However, many of the book's points that generally concern stylistic and structural issues transcend the details of particular languages.

==Reception==