Hi, Mike.
>After reading Craig's endorsement I went to Amazon, read the reviews and bought a copy. I've only read the first 150 pages so far, but already I have identified a number of things that I should be doing better.<g>
>
>Thanks for the tip :-)
Once you finish this one, you may take a look at Rapid Development, and Software Project Survival Guide, also from Steve McConell.
Another Bible-type book is Writing Solid Code, from Steve Maguire. although the book is focused on the C language, the techniques are mostly language independent (except for the memory management stuff, etc).
As someone (I think Tamar) said, those books save you years of trial and error, and learning by mistakes, for about 50 bucks and a few days of reading.
Best regards,