Books for learning how to write "big" programs

[Kurt Smith]

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 10:55 AM, duli <dulipishi at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi:
> I would like recommendations for books (in any language, not
> necessarily C++, C, python) which have walkthroughs for developing
> a big software project ? So starting from inception, problem
> definition, design, coding and final delivery on a single theme
> or application.

The bigger the project, the more likely it is that you'll have
documentation on how to use it (for a language or library, how to use
the features in your program) but to take the time to write up a
dead-tree book on the project's "inception, problem definition,
design, coding and final delivery" is not likely well spent.  Anyone
who has the expertise to write such a book would probably be spending
his time working on the next phase of the project itself.

Someone will probably respond with an amazon link to a book that does
exactly what you're asking, in which case, I will stand corrected.
But I'll be surprised.

>
> Most of the code I have written and books that I have read deal with
> toy programs and I am looking for something a bit more
> comprehensive.  For example, maybe a complete compiler written in C++
> for some language, or a complete web server or implementing
> .net libraries in some language (just a few examples of the scale of
> things I am interested in learning).

It seems to me the reason toy programs are so prevalent is because
they illustrate a (few) well defined ideas in a short amount of code.
A big project, necessarily, brings together all kinds of stuff, much
of which may not interest the author at all, and so doesn't motivate
him to write a book about it.

Compilers, web servers & .NET libraries are *widely* varying areas.
You may have interest in them all, but to significantly contribute to
any requires a fair amount of expertise and specialization.

The best route I've found to learn how to organize & program large
scale applications is this: find a cutting edge program that interests
you and that is open source.  Download its source, and read the code.
Diagram it.  Map it out.  Read the comments.  Join the mailing list
(probably the developer's list), lurk for a while, and ask questions
about why they organized things the way they did.  Get the overall big
picture and learn from it.  Better yet, find out what pitfalls they
found and avoided (or fell into).  Compare their approach &
organization with another competing project.  This is the wonder of
open source software -- you have access to everything, and can learn
from all the expertise the developers put into their opus.

You can learn the basics from books, but nothing beats analyzing a
species in the wild.

Kurt