Comments on: Strunk & White can apply to programming

By: Orv

Orv — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:59:57 +0000

This reminds me of a book I saw many years ago called “The Little Book of BASIC Style.” The title was a reference to “The Little Book of Style,” a guide for authors and publishers. This was from the “bad old days” of non-structured BASIC programming, and had a bunch of tips for how to make BASIC programs more clear.

By: glompix

glompix — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:39:08 +0000

Actually, more like…

* { text-transform:lowercase; }

Much cleaner, and this site uses it. :)

By: kyle

kyle — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:49:36 +0000

@lee, ever notice that no one on hackaday capitalizes anything?… strtolower($comment) ;

By: Lee Drake

Lee Drake — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:54:21 +0000

Wow – my English teacher would have killed me if he’d seen that post, and Strunk and White are probably rolling in their graves. I can’t believe I missed that many capitalizations, and made that many spelling errors…. :) I should do a better proofing job before hitting “Submit”….

By: Lee Drake

Lee Drake — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:52:32 +0000

I learned to program Pascal off the “elements of style”. I belive that and CJ Date’s relational database book were the two formative books in my early development experience. There isn’t much in those two books that isn’t still true today, not matter what the database engine or programming language you’re using.

By: RT (Panzer Time!)

RT (Panzer Time!) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:52:09 +0000

Yes, The Elements of Style is an excellent book. Everyone can profit from it. Clarity in text is always desirable on the Internet, where sometimes the main idea is lost due to a single bad construction.

Now, I don’t necessarily think that all programming needs to be done in the super-structured style of pascal, but planning is always good, and using tried-and-true methods whenever possible is also advisable.

By: MaDecue

MaDecue — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:44:02 +0000

Hmmm, while agree with the sentiment, none other the Kernighan and Plaugher wrote “The Elements of Programming Style” way back in 1978, when I was in college. It is highly recommended.

As I recall, it uses Pascal as the example language, but the priciples are applicable to any language / programming effort.

BTW, Strunk and White is an incredible book. It has been on my desk throughout my career. Even if you only write email, you *must* have this book. It’s the only book on clear writing that I’ve ever read that has actually been entertaining.