The Clean ABAP book is here - but should I read Clean Code first ?

[joachimrees1]

It feels kind of strange to ask this question, as surely the answer is "it depends" or "do whatever you want", but with this preface, I'll ask anyway:

I am an ABAP developer.

I have the brand new Clean ABAP book available (in German), and also the old classic Clean Code by Robert C. Martin.

Which one should I read (first)?

Why ?

Core of my question: do you think I will somehow benefit from reading Clean Code first, or will I be very fine with "just" reading the Clean ABAP book?

[FredericGirod]

Hi Joachim, I don't read these two books, so I am waiting you do it, to give your answer 🙂

My favorite one (for the moment) is "Object-Oriented Design with ABAP".

I think felipe.dimmu23 reads the Clean Code, and a lot of other like these two books. Maybe he could give his point of view 🙂

[joachimrees1]

Haha, good one frdric.girod ! 🙂

Well I don't have an answer yet, but surely Clean Code is a good read by itself.

Like in Chapter 2 Meaningful Names, Pick One Word per Concept, where he writes:

"A consistant lexicon is a great boon to the programmers who must use your code. "

and I add: it also is for me, when I just KNOW how to name stuff, and don't have to THINK long about it!

[FredericGirod]

Naming in Oo is maybe the most complex part for me. I am pretty sure I use 1/4 of the time to rename variable, class, method ... The rename option of Eclipse is a real great help for me 🙂

[joachimrees1]

Well, I started reading Clean ABAP and it gives the answer right away: while with Clean ABAP "only" being the GitHub styleguide, it was always recommended to read Clean Code along with it.

Now that Clean ABAP is a full book by itselfe, that is no longer necessary to get a good, complete picture! (Never hurts to still also read Clean Code, of course!)

[matt]

Exactly this. My word, it is a good book. I've learned so much. And changed my programming style. I will, however, continue to comment the text of message class messages. It's unlikely to change much.