A correspondent asked this. As I haven't the time now to answer him, I'll invite The Collective to do so. [[Quality of C-coded Tcl/Tk source.]] [[Read good code.]] [[Paramount importance of engineering review.]] [[Example rewrite sessions.]] [[chat?]] ---- While learning to write good (better) code is a life-long journey, I think that there are three significant events in my career. First, while employed in a Fortune 100 company, my group all took training in structured design (the "Yourdon" methodology, FWIW). That taught me the importance of loose coupling, well defined interfaces, and code reviews. Second, I had the good fortune to read "Software Tools" by Kernighan & Plauger [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/020103669X/christophernelso]. I regard this as possibly the single best source on software engineering. Third, as part of my MS studies in Computer Science, I took a course on "provably correct systems". While I initially thought that the couse would be interesting, though abstract and useless, it may be the single course that has most influenced my coding style. That said, I endorse reading good code and code reviews as important parts of the on-going process of learning to write better code. -- [CLN]