[summertime42]

I have all of these on my shelf. Fantastic reads.

* Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck

* Clean Code and The Clean Coder by Robert C. Martin

* Soft Skills by John Sonmez (1st edition)

* Pragmatic Programmer by Andrew Hunt and David Thomas

* Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers

* The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick Brooks

(Selfish plug) Additionally, I wrote my own book concerning the entire industry, from just starting out to becoming a self employed consultant when you get sick of fulltime work - all soft skills from my decade or so of the industry, as well - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B43V1JJW

[cokeandpepsi]

Robert C. Martin has ruined so many mid organizations it's kind of funny

[teddyh]

If you want your criticism to be taken seriously, please be specific.

There is apparently a large group of people who hate everything he does and also, seemingly, him personally. Everywhere he (or any of his books) is mentioned, the haters come out, with their vague “it’s all bad” and the old standard “I don’t know where to begin”. Serious criticism can be found (if you look for it), and he himself welcomes it, but the constant vague hate is scary to see.

[cokeandpepsi]

I don't hate everything he does and I'd imagine he's probably an interesting guy to chat with

there is a subset of 'clean code' fanatics who treat his work as religious text and tend to produce some of the most bloated unmanagable code bases I've run into

I wouldn't even say his work is valueless but it's a horrible starting point and shouldn't be a destiation

[teddyh]

Again, criticism without any specifics.

And people misinterpreting and doing bad things (which he would agree is bad), is that his fault?

[tester756]

Years wasted on having to convincing people that "comments are viable" because they misunderstood Clean Code

[teddyh]

Sounds like people being stupid? I mean, he never says that comments are not viable: like you say, they misunderstand the book.

[tmaly]

On that one point, he should issue clarification and release a new version.

[teddyh]

Have you read the book? I checked it now, and I think he expresses himself quite clearly.

[tmaly]

Yes, I have read it. But it seems that people have confusion over this part.

[pushedx]

Having never read Clean Code, why do you say that?

[Chris_Newton]

Someone wrote a lengthy and detailed critique of Clean Code a little while back:

https://qntm.org/clean

As someone who also recommends against improving developers reading Clean Code, I think the arguments in that piece are generally on point.

[charles_f]

To the point of the question I would much more recommend "Clean Coder" by uncle bob, which mostly deals about the professional ethics of software development