As a programmer in training who has both Clean Code and Code Complete in a queue on the edge of my desk, I'm following this thread to decide which goes first, or if they both get sold in mint condition.

Code complete is a classic.

Clean code will teach you how writing 3 line functions is a best practice. It's an overhyped, overrated book which is more damaging than helpful and one of the very few I couldn't stand to read until the end due to the authors' dogmatic views.

I find it painful working with codebases that don't use most of the principles re:

- Write code like good stories: Code should read like a story, methodically descending the call graph method by method; each working at one level of abstraction.

For example, why is string manipulation littered all over this function that's supposed to be dealing with consolidating reports? Ugh. I like when one function stays at one level of abstraction

- Factor out conditions into descriptive methods: I shouldn't have to sit and read through 5 logical operators, some arithmetic, and method calls in 1 'if' conditional, to understand why we're doing all this.

Once again, this goes back to having your code read like a story. Factor it out into a descriptive function, so that I can understand at a glance and deep dive if necessary.

- Comments are a failure: This applies 99.99% of the time. It's almost comical when someone leaves behind a comment that could be eliminated by factoring something out into a descriptive method call instead.

There's a lot of other great stuff in Clean Code that I'm forgetting off the top of my head. (It's been awhile since I last looked over it.)

I've come across very few code bases that are a literal pleasure to read. https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll is one of the cleanest codebases that comes to mind immediately. And on the other side of the coin, https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes is one of the dirtiest.

If anyone wants more details/expansion, let me know and I'll reloop. (On my phone right now.)