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Cookbooks for Software Engineers

Implementation | October 04, 2004 | 2 comments

The one thing I hate about your typical programming book is that it tends not to be the best resource for when you really need it, when you run into a problem. That is why I love cookbook style books, you look up your problem in the table of contents and you then proceed to the page(s) in the book where you are given the solution to your problem. Engineers are problem solvers by definition, hence that is the way we like our books.

I am looking forward to the day someone writes a good software engineering cookbook but until then I will share with you a website I came across. Guillaume Cottenceau is the project maintainer for PLEAC, Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook, where contributors are taking O’Reilly’s Perl Cookbook and translating the Perl based solutions for common problems into nineteen different programming languages.

What would a software engineering cookbook look like? What recipes would it contain? Anyone want to write one with me?

Related Links:

• PLEAC - Programming Language Examples Alike Cookbook
• Perl Cookbook

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Comments

October 4, 2004 09:13 PM | Louis-Philippe Huberdeau commented:

I personnaly think that cookbooks’ vision is too narrow to be useful in real situations. I might always have felt on bad ones, but the approach is nothing positive to me.

If you follow a recipe to build an application, you are propably better off trying to find a software that already exists and try to improve it (assuming it’s Free Software). If it’s something really particular, there probably won’t be any miracle recipe for it. Your best bet is to ask the client what he really wants and analyse his work process.

Of course there are development patterns and similarities, but that’s just plain obvious. Maybe I just have been programming for too long, but I really don’t see a moment where I would have found a cookbook useful. Examples are welcome.

If I want to learn a language, I want a very technical book that goes straight to the point and that won’t repeat me what a class or object is. I just like it when the author of the book assumes I’m not a total ignorant. If I want to learn new concepts, I don’t want to see code unless it’s really revelant.

October 5, 2004 08:29 PM | John Kopanas commented:

I don’t think one would follow a recipe from a cookbook to build a whole application but rather to get a sample solution to a specific problem you are try to solve within the application.

I guess in my case, because I don’t program very often and only program out of necessity, I don’t memorize much and like the idea of looking up solutions on how to solve problems that I am trying to solve. The solutions in these books in theory should have been implemented, tested, documented and scrutinized by others rather me having to re-invent the wheel… which should only be done when there is a need for it or for educational purposes.

When it comes to taking a pre-existing application where the source is available to you and making major modifications to it so to get it to work the way you want it to work can be scary. It has to be done on a case by case basis. If the architecture does not support what you want to do with it you might be creating a very messy piece of software that will be very hard to maintain in the long run.

I personally don’t like things that are too low level like some programming languages that take 10 lines to write a hello world program but I also am not comfortable with just taking a pre-existing system and modifying it to suit my needs. I am the type of person who likes a good high level language, a good framework and a good reference book that gets right to the point with lots of exmaples :-). I love exampples.

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