The Elements of Programming Style: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 21:09, 7 June 2017

Revision as of 12:58, 12 January 2018

Line 2:

{{italic title}}

[[Image:The Elements of Programming Style.jpg|200px|thumb|Cover of the second edition]]

'''''The Elements of Programming Style''''', by [[Brian W. Kernighan]] and [[P. J. Plauger]], is a study of [[programming style]], advocating the notion that computer programs should be written not only to satisfy the compiler or personal programming "style", but also for "readability" by humans, specifically [[software maintenance]] engineers, [[programmers]] and [[technical writers]]. It was originally published in 1974.

The book pays explicit homage, in title and tone, to ''[[The Elements of Style]]'', by [[William Strunk Jr.|Strunk]] & [[E. B. White|White]] and is considered a practical template promoting [[Edsger Dijkstra|Edsger Dijkstra's]] [[structured programming]] discussions. It has been influential and has spawned a series of similar texts tailored to individual languages, such as ''The Elements of C Programming Style'', ''The Elements of C# Style'', ''The Elements of Java(TM) Style'', ''The Elements of MATLAB Style'', etc.