20101002

The Design of Design

I recently finished reading The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist by Frederick P. Brooks, (better known for his classic text The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering).  I would highly recommend it for any computer science students, and even any other technical discipline that deals with design work.  While most of what he says about design isn't anything particularly new or sensational, he manages to cover the breadth of design wisdom and put it all into a coherent framework, with lot's of examples and stories to back it up.  It's also a fairly quick read.  My only complaint is that about half the book is an account of several iterations of him designing his family beach house.  That was boring enough that I skimmed or skipped most of it.  He used it mainly to illustrated some of his design principles in a way that was accessible to a general audience, and I'm sure it would be more useful to people who are hearing some of his design philosophy for the first time.  More useful, was his analysis of some of the early IBM computer architectures that he worked on, and some discussion on the constraints and trade-offs involved.

Another chunk of the book was devoted to discussing the design process as it interacts with an institutional framework such as a business.  Having recently started a full-time job as a computer programmer, I found this to be the most interesting part of the book.  He balanced theory with examples and lots of practical advice, which is fairly rare among most of the people I've seen try and cover the topic.

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