code quality dds

News, Reviews, Praise

February 2011 — Ying-Dar Lin, Ren-Hung Hwang, and Fred Baker publish a networking textbook with open source examples.

The book, Computer Networks: An Open Source Approach, presents network layers, their applications, protocol design, and implementation issues through 56 open-source code examples that narrow the gap between domain knowledge and hands-on skills. The book's publication signals the increasing adoption of open-source code cases in teaching. Notable predecessors include John Lions' Commentary on Unix 6th Edition with Source Code (Annabooks, Poway, CA, 1996), Andrew Tanenbaum's Operating Systems: Design and Implementation (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1987), as well as my two books Code Reading: The Open Source Perspective (Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, 2003) and Code Quality: The Open Source Perspective (Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA, 2006).

September 2010 — Clevertester — review

A review appearing on clevertester.com concludes:

Managers should buy the book, and not read it, but pass it on to the code bashers in their teams.

June 2007 — ;login: — Review

In a review appearing in the volume 32, number 3 (June 2007, p. 65) issue of ;login:, the USENIX Association magazine, Elizabeth Zwicky writes:

I've enjoyed this book a lot, but can I blame it for the shortage of reviews? It's a very dense book, with something to think about in every sentence. If you carefully absorb everything it has to say and manage to implement it, you will be a pro- gramming wizard. [...]

March 2007 — JOLT Software Development Productivity Award

The editors of Dr. Dobb's Journal announced the winners of the 17th annual Jolt Product Excellence and Productivity Awards during the Awards Ceremony at CMP Technology's Software Development West 2007 Conference and Expo, held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. The book Code Quality: The Open Source Perspective received a Productivity Award in the "Technical Books" category.

February 2007 — comp.risks — Review

Rob Slade posted a review of Code Quality on the ACM forum on risks to the public in computers and related systems (comp.risks). The review concludes:

I believe Spinellis' text should be required reading for all programming courses and programs. In addition, those involved with analysis, maintenance, and change control should consider it a bible to be read and re-read until the lessons are firmly implanted.

Thanks, Rob!

January 2007 — Jolt Award Finalist

The book Code Quality is among the eight books selected as finalists in the Technical Book category of the 17th Annual Jolt Product Excellence Awards.

September 2006 — Software Quality Professional — Review

In a review appearing in the volume 8, number 4 (September 2006, pp. 43) issue of the Software Quality Professional journal published by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Scott Duncan concludes:

For those who write, review, and structurally test code, this seems like a worthwhile book. I think people working with systems written in other languages could still find good ideas for their writing, reviewing, and testing activities. Since both this book and Code Reading are really a split of what was headed toward being a very large book, the two, together, are probably a worth- while set to have.

20 July 2006 — iWeek Recommended Reading

The Recommended Reading column of the iWeek newsmagazine features Code Quality.

Code Quality focuses on non-functional properties, demonstrating how to meet such critical requirements as reliability, security, portability, and maintainability. Spinellis draws on hundreds of examples from open-source projects to illustrate concepts and techniques.

20 July 2006 — Alan Berg review in the Free Software Magazine

In a review appearing in the Free Software Magazine, Alan Berg writes:

[...] This book by Diomidis Spinellis is a well written, well focused and to a high degree an eternal description of the varying types and issues that can be found in programming languages such as Java and C. [...] The book reeks with experience and detailed observation of the problem domain. It is obvious to me that the author has a profound insight into what makes bad software bad and thus strongly hints at how to create excellence.

Thanks, Alan!

30 June 2006 — Pan Pantziarka review in Reg Developer

Pan Pantziarka's review in Reg Developer also appeared on the front page of The Register. The review concludes:

While this book doesn't break new ground in the way Code Reading did, the focus of the book and the emphasis on using real code makes it a useful and interesting read.

Thanks, Pan!

28 June 2006 — Edwin Fine writes the first review on amazon.com

The review states:

This book has a great deal of interesting and practical advice. A few people learn much of this advice through years of experience, but from what I have seen, most do not. This book would be most useful to beginning and intermediate software developers who have not yet discovered the wisdom by trial and error, or experienced developers who want to communicate the information to less knowledgable colleagues in an easily digestible format. Unfortunately, I was disappointed by by the quality of copy editing. I would have given the book 4 stars otherwise. However, I would still recommend the book, even with the errors, because it's worth it.

Edwin, kindly pointed out some of the errors he discovered, and they are now listed in the book's errata page.

May 2006 — a review in Greg Wilson's blog

Greg Wilson, a writer, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto, and a contributing editor with Doctor Dobb's Journal was the first to publish a book review. The review concludes:

the book ought to be required reading in every undergraduate software engineering program, and everything it covers should be on every professional developer's check-list.

Thanks, Greg.

• If you would like to review a copy for a magazine or Web site, drop me a line.
• If you see any reviews or references, please send me copies, URLs, etc.

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Last modified: 2011-06-04