Comments on: Sample Code on Programming Books Considered Harmful

By: Dave

Dave — Sun, 24 May 2009 02:36:26 +0000

Several publishers now use live code in book production.

Aside from that, you’re simply making a huge, sweeping generalization that serves little purpose.

By: Casper Bang

Casper Bang — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:36:17 +0000

Not sure I agree. Most samples are for illustrative purposes, a way to get a technique, syntactical construct or idiom across to the reader in a terse and finite language.

The best counter example I can come up with, is to compare the GoF and Head First Design Patterns books. The former makes you fall asleep before you hit page 10, the latter shows you exactly how to apply it with samples throughout the book.

That’s not to say I haven’t seen bad samples or 1000+ paged textbooks, point taken. But to claim sample code is considered harmful is a bit of a stretch.

By: james

james — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:28:49 +0000

But what about programming languages like Java. We can’t just go through all api to start coding. We have to get some idea, in order to get that we have to follow few steps. I don’t say copy and paste but get the logic, practice coding and compare with text book code.

By: coliveira

coliveira — Sat, 16 May 2009 19:57:57 +0000

@Zoltan: it is really rare a case where the author realizes how bad the code is (in the sense that I described in the article). Just making that acknowledgment would make life much easier for inexperienced readers.

By: Zoltan

Zoltan — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:21:02 +0000

Can’t agree more. While I think sample code has it’s uses, space constraints often lead to code that takes too many short-cuts. Not a problem if the reader is familiar with the “right way” to do things, but, unless it’s pointed out, many readers are going to put that sample code into production apps.

I made that point in a review of PHP and MySQL Web Dev.
(http://yyztech.ca/reviews/book/php-mysql-web-development), which actually realizes this is the case – and tries to discourage it.