[DavidWoof]

Code Complete was overwhelmingly the most influential programming book I've ever read. But it's been around for 20 years, and much of the material has now been rehashed in many other books, videos, forums, blog posts, etc. I think that's what other posters are getting at when they say it's just common sense: this kind of thing is everywhere now.

Much of the book is spent making arguments for and providing evidence for things that are considered obvious today.

So if you stopped because the material sounded obvious and redundant, then maybe it is for you. But if you stopped because the material seemed seemed unimportant or trivial, then I strongly urge you to start up with it again.

[candiru]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SeinfeldIsUnfunny

[henrik_w]

Even if a lot of the ideas are also present elsewhere, I still think it is a great book, especially the parts on how to actually write code. For example the chapters on naming, code lay-out, conditionals and methods/functions. I don't know of any other book that covers that as well as Code Complete does.

It is a thick book. But you can still learn a lot even if you don't read it cover to cover. Even if it only makes you a better developer by 0.5%, isn't that still worth it?

My full review of it is here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R269BBARXH1V6R/