June 2025
Intermediate to advanced
152 pages
3h 15m
English
Content preview from simplicity
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
| Practice 20 | Let the Data Do the Driving |
Replacing code with data is probably at the top of the list of things that give me that self-satisfied feel-good feeling when I code.
I love taking code that is either repetitive or close to being repetitive and shrinking it all down to a single function that can be parameterized by data.
Why? Because…
| Idea 46 | Data is easier to change than code |
Maybe I’m creating a bunch of shapes for a drawing program:
| | shape = add_shape(Triangle, sides: 3) |
| | shapes_by_sides[3].push(shape) |
| | |
| | shape = add_shape(Square, sides: 4) |
| | shapes_by_sides[4].push(shape) |
| | |
| | shape = add_shape(Rhombus, sides: 4) |
| | shapes_by_sides[4].push(shape) |
| | : : |
I’d most likely write the code this way when I start with the first shape and stick with ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access
More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.