Code Complete

"This handbook discusses general aspects of construction such as software quality and ways to think about programming."

"Depending on the size of the project, construction typically takes 30 to 80 percent of the total time spent on a project."

"About 50 percent of the development effort on a typical software system comes after its initial release."

"If you emphasize quality at the beginning of the project, you plan for, require, and design a high-quality product."

"Software architecture is the high-level part of software design, the frame that holds the more detailed parts of the design."

"Aside from the computer itself, the routine is the single greatest invention in computer science. The routine makes programs easier to read and easier to understand than any other feature of any other programming language."

"In defensive programming, if a routine is passed bad data, it won't be hurt. It's the recognition that programs will have problems and modifications, and that a smart programmer will develop code accordingly."

"Design is the activity that links requirements specification to coding and debugging. It's a heuristic process rather than a deterministic one, requiring creativity and insight."

"As project size increases, construction becomes a smaller part of the total effort."

"Standards shouldn't be imposed at all, if you can avoid them. Consider the alternatives to standards: flexible guidelines, a collection of suggestions rather than guidelines, or a set of examples that embody the best practices."

"The best answer to the question of how much construction a project will call for is that the proportion will vary from project to project and organization to organization."

"Although it might seem that the best way to develop a high-quality product would be to focus on the product itself, in software quality assurance the best place to focus is on the process."

"A systematic approach to unit testing maximizes your ability to detect errors of all kinds with a minimum effort."

"Evolutionary delivery is an incremental approach to delivering software. Its main technical features are incremental integration and an exceptionally careful ordering of construction activities."

"Complexity, abstraction, process, readability, iteration, and so on. These themes account in large part for the difference between hacking and software craftsmanship."