I bought this book in 2004 and have read most of it multiple times. This is not a how to write code book, it's a how to write and rewrite code well book.



Frankly, the reason I bought this book was because Kent Beck was a co-author. His book "Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns" is a classic, even though it is tough to read. Beck knows software development from practical experience, not only theoretical concepts.



I've been programming for 35 years, and this book reaffirmed what I had learned from working on many projects, writing many tens of thousands lines of code, and maintaining millions of lines of code. Write tiny methods. Each method should do one thing and do it well. Avoid duplicate code for many reasons.



I practice the principles in this book everyday. If you understand and practice them too, you will be a better software developer.