software engineering foundations?

[Fredrik Lundh]

skip at pobox.com wrote:

> Sorry for the off-topic-ish post.  My son (a fairly junior sysadmin type)
> mentioned to me today that he was looking for online courses for Perl.  (I
> don't hold that against him.  Perl is still a lingua franca in the sysadmin
> realm.)  In my work I have from time-to-time had to pick up and maintain
> scripts (generally shell/Python stuff) which non-professional programmers
> have written.  It's never what you would call a "pleasant" task.
> 
> There are software construction skills which are entirely distinct from the
> language in which you are programming.  We can tout object-oriented,
> structured programming, test-driven development or other software
> engineering techniques, but there is a body of knowledge out there which is
> orthogonal to the language in which the code is written.  People who are not
> professional programmers often lack those skills and their code shows it.

just get McDonnell's "Code Complete":

     http://www.cc2e.com/

</F>