Writing Solid Code

Written by a former Microsoft developer and troubleshooter, this book takes on the problem of software errors by examining the kinds of mistakes develops typically make. With the growing complexity of software today and the associated climb in bug rates, it's becoming increasingly necessary for programmers to produce bug-free code much earlier in the development cycle, before the code is first sent to Testing. The key to writing bug-free code is to become more aware of how and why bugs come about. Programmers can gain this awareness by asking two simple questions for every bug they encounter: "How could I have prevented this bug?" and "How could I have automatically detected this bug?" The guidelines presented in this book are the results of programmers regularly asking these questions over a number of years. Writing Solid Code provides practical approaches to the prevention and automatic detection of bugs. Throughout, Steve Maguire draws candidly on the history of application development at Microsoft for cases in point-both good and bad-and shows you how to use proven programming techniques to produce solid code. If you're serious developing world-class code, you'll benefit from Maguire's experience and practical advice in Writing Solid Code.