Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship

(5/5)

Review by Joshua Morris on October 20, 2025

Review

The new second edition is still the book I hand to new engineers. I reread it while untangling a decade-old service and the refreshed chapters on functions, naming, and error handling mapped directly onto the code reviews we run today. The added case studies and refactoring walkthroughs make it even easier to pair chapters with exercises; I watched juniors internalize the habits while we rewrote gnarly TypeScript modules. Examples remain Java-forward, but the principles translate cleanly to Go, Rust, or Python, and the new sidebars call out language-agnostic patterns. A few legacy idioms show their age, yet the discipline and smell catalog remain timeless.

✓ Pros

✓Refreshed second-edition chapters reinforce timeless clean-code habits
✓Expanded smell catalog and refactoring walkthroughs match real-world code reviews
✓Great companion for mentoring juniors or aligning team standards
✓Language-agnostic guidance still applies beyond the Java-centric examples

✗ Cons

✗Examples remain Java-centric and dense compared to newer visual titles
✗Physical layout is text-heavy if you prefer bite-sized summaries

Specifications

Pages	672
Edition	2nd
Publisher	Addison-Wesley Professional
Language	English
Isbn13	978-0135398579
Publication Date	October 18, 2025

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