When the book saw the lights, programming wasn’t as important as today. But, some of the ideas around the style of writing are a worth to notice and to know it. For that reason reading the book written by Brian Kernighan and P. J. Plauger are a constant invitation to revisit the way we code, and the different form of thinking when we think about developing software.

The Elements of Programming Style was influenced by The element of Style, and it’s based in some discussions about the way the programs are made at that time. Despite the fact was written following some examples in Fortran, even today we can read this topics and find some ideas that we need to apply in our everyday job. There are some maxims that works a a father for the other ones.

This kind of father of rules are: Don’t be too clever. In fact, use the common sense and try to write a program while you are thinking that other people will read it. Or will be able to read it.

There are some resources outside that are interesting and explain the book content really well:

• Notes from Keyvan Akbary – The Elements of Programming Style
• Presentation by Brian Kernighan – Institute for Advanced Study

Notes taking In this book:

• The elements of programming style: Don’t Be Too clever
• The elements of programming style: Expressions
• The elements of programming style: Control Structure
• The elements of programming style: Program Structure
• The elements of programming style: Input and output
• The elements of programming style: Common Blunders
• The elements of programming style: Efficiency and instrumentation
• The elements of programming style: Documentation
• The elements of programming style: Epilogue