Ask HN: Best books on managing software complexity?
What are the best books you've read on how to manage software complexity, both from an architectural as well as organizational perspective?
124 comments
I enjoyed "A philosophy of software design" by John K Ousterhout https://www.worldcat.org/title/philosophy-of-software-design... just be forewarned that at 180 pages, it's a lot more aspirational than instructive. It depends on what kind of organizational problem you're having: lack of experience, lack of interest, lack of discipline, lack of buy-in, or $other
A philosophy of software design is an excellent book.
Although its ideas are heavily couched in OO terminology, it's changed my ideas about interfaces and exposure to complexity utterly.
Not comprehensive, but every programmer should absolutely read it (it's a tiny book after all).
Although its ideas are heavily couched in OO terminology, it's changed my ideas about interfaces and exposure to complexity utterly.
Not comprehensive, but every programmer should absolutely read it (it's a tiny book after all).
I just finished it and haven't sat down to write a proper review yet.
But I thought it was very uneven in value.
The parts about deep and shallow modules, what good interfaces are, _why_ keeping everything about their implementation hidden is so important -- those were very good.
He also advocated against having small routines, which are almost dogma nowadays (mostly because they're easier to unit test), and he's pretty convincing. That would mean that "making your code easier to test also improves its design" is wrong.
Other parts about documentation etc I thought were too long and not very interesting. Then the bit at the end about optimizing for execution speed was very interesting again, though perhaps because I had never read much on the subject, before, I don't know.
Yes, read it, it's an interesting contribution.
But I thought it was very uneven in value.
The parts about deep and shallow modules, what good interfaces are, _why_ keeping everything about their implementation hidden is so important -- those were very good.
He also advocated against having small routines, which are almost dogma nowadays (mostly because they're easier to unit test), and he's pretty convincing. That would mean that "making your code easier to test also improves its design" is wrong.
Other parts about documentation etc I thought were too long and not very interesting. Then the bit at the end about optimizing for execution speed was very interesting again, though perhaps because I had never read much on the subject, before, I don't know.
Yes, read it, it's an interesting contribution.
> That would mean that "making your code easier to test also improves its design" is wrong.
I assume that quote is talking about unit tests, but it's becoming more and more accepted that integration tests are more important than unit tests. https://kentcdodds.com/blog/write-tests
This shift away from unit tests is the corollary to Ousterhout's preference for deep modules.
I assume that quote is talking about unit tests, but it's becoming more and more accepted that integration tests are more important than unit tests. https://kentcdodds.com/blog/write-tests
This shift away from unit tests is the corollary to Ousterhout's preference for deep modules.
In my experience, honestly the advantages of a unit testing suite are extremely minimal depending on your integration test runtime.
However, they're a good tool if for example you're working with a Big Data system, where an end to end integration test will necessarily take an extraordinary amount of time.
For my first job out of school in Apache Spark they were absolutely brilliant. For my current codebase? Not so much.
However, TDD just reduces the number of mistakes I make by an umpteenth amount.
Just because it breaks my code up into extremely short subroutines so I screw up less. Plus writing the unit test itself is a brilliant way to "measure twice, cut once."
However, they're a good tool if for example you're working with a Big Data system, where an end to end integration test will necessarily take an extraordinary amount of time.
For my first job out of school in Apache Spark they were absolutely brilliant. For my current codebase? Not so much.
However, TDD just reduces the number of mistakes I make by an umpteenth amount.
Just because it breaks my code up into extremely short subroutines so I screw up less. Plus writing the unit test itself is a brilliant way to "measure twice, cut once."
I disagree that most tests should be integration tests. He seems to dismiss them in the article because of his experience with diminishing returns with test coverage and tests that test implementation details which basically means the tests aren’t made correctly and/or targeted at the right areas. He also seems to dismiss the pyramid rather quickly without giving a good reason against it (unit tests are quicker to run and cheaper to implement). This is not to say we should ignore integration tests entirely (or e2e tests for that matter), just that a shift to the traditional guidance is still valid.
It wasn't a direct quote, but an idea I've heard repeated many times.
And integration tests are nice, but the idea of testing small units was that every branch in the code under test doubles the number of possible execution paths, so tmit becomes harder and harder to test every path.
So we should branch less, I guess. His parts about "define errors put of existence" and writing more general code with fewer obscure details would probably help.
And integration tests are nice, but the idea of testing small units was that every branch in the code under test doubles the number of possible execution paths, so tmit becomes harder and harder to test every path.
So we should branch less, I guess. His parts about "define errors put of existence" and writing more general code with fewer obscure details would probably help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSAYlu0NcY (A Philosophy of Software Design | John Ousterhout | Talks at Google)
I also recommend this book.
It's refreshing that they take a first principles approach in managing complexity.
It's refreshing that they take a first principles approach in managing complexity.
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The least complex software is the one never built. We often over-automate. Automation is brittle and inflexible and easily ends up lined with edge cases and other types o complexity.
Automation is great when it replaces a stable, well-working manual process.
The way to introduce automation is to first experiment with humans doing something manually until you have a great process. Then take the dumbest, most reliable part of that and turn it into a computer program that alerts a human if it encounters an edge case.
Try not to handle edge cases in the software, but try to remove them from the greater system in which they occur.
Automate by elimination, not by complexity.
Good books in this vein would be anything with Taiichi Ohno in the title, or, perhaps better, as the author.
Automation is great when it replaces a stable, well-working manual process.
The way to introduce automation is to first experiment with humans doing something manually until you have a great process. Then take the dumbest, most reliable part of that and turn it into a computer program that alerts a human if it encounters an edge case.
Try not to handle edge cases in the software, but try to remove them from the greater system in which they occur.
Automate by elimination, not by complexity.
Good books in this vein would be anything with Taiichi Ohno in the title, or, perhaps better, as the author.
Conversely, automation creates a clear and well defined workflow for completing a task. There is nothing to "automate" if there is not already a manual process to doing it. Sure, sometimes the automation you introduce can be an over-engineered solution that's more difficult to maintain (or just not work) compared to a human-done manual process. To that point I think a valid solution would be to make the process itself more automation friendly, if possible given your circumstances.
Yes. This is what Taiichi Ohno would call "standard work": well-defined processes intended to be executed literally, and evolved with and by the people who perform the execution.
Standard work is a great source of things to automate, but automation is not a replacement for it.
Standard work is a great source of things to automate, but automation is not a replacement for it.
I am sorry but this is tangential to what OP is asking.
I think there is an aspect worthy of analysis there.
He has clearly been reading up on The Toyota Way and one aspect of it is that they look to understand well a process before automating it.
I have found that a lot of complexity comes from mindlessly automating processes: you end up with systems integrations and data conversions that add a lot of complexity and are often brittle too.
He has clearly been reading up on The Toyota Way and one aspect of it is that they look to understand well a process before automating it.
I have found that a lot of complexity comes from mindlessly automating processes: you end up with systems integrations and data conversions that add a lot of complexity and are often brittle too.
This is indeed very typical for many digital automation projects created by bureaucracies. As the head of a German airline said, "If you digitize a shitty process, then you’ll end up with a shitty digital process".
This has nothing to do with the question, why are you going off on a tangent about philosophy of automation?
Software is automation. By relying less on automation, your software is less complex. That's a way to manage software complexity organisationally.
This is like someone asking how to build a simpler house and your answer is to tell them to live in the woods.
If someone is trying to design a better plane, it doesn't make sense to tell them to just convince everyone asking for a better plane to stop traveling. It is nonsense and seems like you have unrelated ideas that you are trying to shoehorn into this question.
If someone is trying to design a better plane, it doesn't make sense to tell them to just convince everyone asking for a better plane to stop traveling. It is nonsense and seems like you have unrelated ideas that you are trying to shoehorn into this question.
That's not how I see it. Imagine for a moment that we had an epidemic where every family just had to build a five-story mansion complete with service buildings to feel like they keep up with the Joneses.
That's what I see a lot of in software right now.
I'm merely suggesting that maybe a regular two-story family house is enough. Maybe even one story, depending on needs.
Note that only the first sentence of my comment said "don't automate". The other eight described a way to automate with less complexity when you have to.
That's what I see a lot of in software right now.
I'm merely suggesting that maybe a regular two-story family house is enough. Maybe even one story, depending on needs.
Note that only the first sentence of my comment said "don't automate". The other eight described a way to automate with less complexity when you have to.
Imagine for a moment
I think this is the problem - you are imagining a question that isn't being asked by telling someone to just not make that problem.
This person asked for book on managing complexity. You are saying 'just don't make software as complex and do it by not making software at all'. That is two steps removed from being any sort of answer to this question.
I think this is the problem - you are imagining a question that isn't being asked by telling someone to just not make that problem.
This person asked for book on managing complexity. You are saying 'just don't make software as complex and do it by not making software at all'. That is two steps removed from being any sort of answer to this question.
I don't see it that way. When I have had trouble managing complexity, I have been happy for advice on how to reduce it going forward.
Step one to solving a problem is often to find a technique by which time is no longer stacked against you. Then you can attack the other thing in peace.
Step one to solving a problem is often to find a technique by which time is no longer stacked against you. Then you can attack the other thing in peace.
I have been happy for advice on how to reduce it going forward.
You didn't do that, your solution was 'don't write software'.
If someone asks for tips on organizing their kitchen and without knowing anything more than that, you say 'make your kitchen smaller and don't use your kitchen' do you think that is reasonable advice?
You didn't do that, your solution was 'don't write software'.
If someone asks for tips on organizing their kitchen and without knowing anything more than that, you say 'make your kitchen smaller and don't use your kitchen' do you think that is reasonable advice?
Not writing as much software will result in reduced complexity going forward.
Sure, if someone built tens of industrial kitchens every month for regular families and just in the middle of nowhere (which is what i see a lot of in software) and then asked "how can I reduce my kitchen expenses" I would suggest "how about going forward you make your kitchens smaller and don't build them at all where nobody uses them?"
Sure, if someone built tens of industrial kitchens every month for regular families and just in the middle of nowhere (which is what i see a lot of in software) and then asked "how can I reduce my kitchen expenses" I would suggest "how about going forward you make your kitchens smaller and don't build them at all where nobody uses them?"
No one asked if they "should write software they don't need".
You are answering a question that no one would ever ask and you can't answer it because you don't have any other information other than the actual question that was asked.
You are answering a question that no one would ever ask and you can't answer it because you don't have any other information other than the actual question that was asked.
Given that my comment immediately rose to the top of the thread and then stuck there, I have some evidence that people think it's a good suggestion.
Just because you don't see how it's a good suggestion doesn't mean it's not.
Just because you don't see how it's a good suggestion doesn't mean it's not.
That doesn't mean anything. If someone asks how to cook and you say 'just don't eat lol', that's not an answer and is just a self indulgent response based on nothing.
> Automation is brittle and inflexible
Wait what ?
Mine automation works for years without an issue. Flaky automation is meaningless.
> that alerts a human if it encounters an edge case.
No. It shouldn't alert anybody almost never if it's good. When you have 300 automation routines, even if it alerts once a year you will have some alert every day. So it needs to alert lower then that, when the world falls out or something...
Wait what ?
Mine automation works for years without an issue. Flaky automation is meaningless.
> that alerts a human if it encounters an edge case.
No. It shouldn't alert anybody almost never if it's good. When you have 300 automation routines, even if it alerts once a year you will have some alert every day. So it needs to alert lower then that, when the world falls out or something...
Yes, you can spend a lot of time and complexity on truly robust automation. But it's not always the most ROI move economically. Especially not in highly volatile businesses where your processes may need to change rapidly.
You didn't calculate ROI right. If YOU are the one that does intervention, then your time is lost constantly doing manual fixing of failed scripts. Not to mention reputation loss, end user dissatisfaction etc.
Automation routines MUST be robust, must handle all weird cases that happen frequently (at least once a year), and must notify when they fail to do so always. Then you should come back and see how to not make them fail even then.
Automation routines MUST be robust, must handle all weird cases that happen frequently (at least once a year), and must notify when they fail to do so always. Then you should come back and see how to not make them fail even then.
I think you are incorrect on both accounts.
It's easy to spend upward of $10000 on really robust automation, when the same manual process would cost only $3000 over its usable lifetime, and the economical-but-less-robust automation costs $1000 over the same period.
The robust automation, in that case, has over 10× worse ROI. What's wrong with that calculation?
The thing about really robust automation is that for it to pay off, the process have to be static over a large number of executions. For many business needs, the process, or its inputs, change every few executions, and you never get to reap the benefits of robust automation before it needs to be redone at great expense.
As for thinking that it's a dichotomy between "no automation" and "absolutely robust automation"... well, I think you're robbing yourself of a large chunk of the strategy space by refusing to see any middle ground but the two extremes.
Edit: also note that I'm not talking about "failed scripts" at any point. I'm talking about scripts that do exactly what they are supposed to, but they are performing a narrow, easily automated slice of the work. A human can chain such scripts together in the requisite sequence by spending very few minutes of their day.
It's easy to spend upward of $10000 on really robust automation, when the same manual process would cost only $3000 over its usable lifetime, and the economical-but-less-robust automation costs $1000 over the same period.
The robust automation, in that case, has over 10× worse ROI. What's wrong with that calculation?
The thing about really robust automation is that for it to pay off, the process have to be static over a large number of executions. For many business needs, the process, or its inputs, change every few executions, and you never get to reap the benefits of robust automation before it needs to be redone at great expense.
As for thinking that it's a dichotomy between "no automation" and "absolutely robust automation"... well, I think you're robbing yourself of a large chunk of the strategy space by refusing to see any middle ground but the two extremes.
Edit: also note that I'm not talking about "failed scripts" at any point. I'm talking about scripts that do exactly what they are supposed to, but they are performing a narrow, easily automated slice of the work. A human can chain such scripts together in the requisite sequence by spending very few minutes of their day.
I think you don't understand automation.
> It's easy to spend upward of $10000 on really robust automation, when the same manual process would cost only $3000 over its usable lifetime.
Manual process is incomparable to automation, because $3k human will make mistakes as humans are not good robots. Also, your miserable $3k human can now do normal thing.
> The thing about really robust automation is that for it to pay off, the process have to be static over a large number of executions.
It doesn't have to be static, it just mustn't be random. Also, how often process changes is important and automation with scripts (that can be changed ad hoc) allows for quick flexibility when problems arise.
> As for thinking that it's a dichotomy between "no automation" and "absolutely robust automation"... well, I think you're robbing yourself of a large chunk of the strategy space by refusing to see any middle ground but the two extremes.
You are also robbing yourself of time to do other things which may lead to more progress, since you are fixing flaky automation all the time.
> A human can chain such scripts together in the requisite sequence by spending very few minutes of their day.
I LOLed. A minute for a single script. You must have missed that in enterprise there are hundreds of scripts. Heck, I usually have 20-30 on a single project.
> It's easy to spend upward of $10000 on really robust automation, when the same manual process would cost only $3000 over its usable lifetime.
Manual process is incomparable to automation, because $3k human will make mistakes as humans are not good robots. Also, your miserable $3k human can now do normal thing.
> The thing about really robust automation is that for it to pay off, the process have to be static over a large number of executions.
It doesn't have to be static, it just mustn't be random. Also, how often process changes is important and automation with scripts (that can be changed ad hoc) allows for quick flexibility when problems arise.
> As for thinking that it's a dichotomy between "no automation" and "absolutely robust automation"... well, I think you're robbing yourself of a large chunk of the strategy space by refusing to see any middle ground but the two extremes.
You are also robbing yourself of time to do other things which may lead to more progress, since you are fixing flaky automation all the time.
> A human can chain such scripts together in the requisite sequence by spending very few minutes of their day.
I LOLed. A minute for a single script. You must have missed that in enterprise there are hundreds of scripts. Heck, I usually have 20-30 on a single project.
Humans indeed deviate from standard process. This causes mistakes but it also prevents them.
It sounds like you think robust automation takes zero minutes to create, since you think of robust automation as always freeing up time. In my experience, robust automation is something that takes considerable time to create and maintain.
Maybe you know of some trick I don't. But since you keep writing about "failing scripts" and "flaky automation" despite my attempts to correct such misunderstandings, I'm starting to suspect you're interpreting my comments as what you want them to say for the sake of your argument, rather than what I'm trying to say.
It sounds like you think robust automation takes zero minutes to create, since you think of robust automation as always freeing up time. In my experience, robust automation is something that takes considerable time to create and maintain.
Maybe you know of some trick I don't. But since you keep writing about "failing scripts" and "flaky automation" despite my attempts to correct such misunderstandings, I'm starting to suspect you're interpreting my comments as what you want them to say for the sake of your argument, rather than what I'm trying to say.
> This causes mistakes but it also prevents them.
I have never experienced that someone wants to keep human if machine could be put to use. No, humans do not prevent mistakes for highly unimaginative repetitive work. Even if it happens, its outlier.
> It sounds like you think robust automation takes zero minutes to create, since you think of robust automation as always freeing up time. In my experience, robust automation is something that takes considerable time to create and maintain.
It takes, and it gets MUCH better with experience. However, the time is finite, unlike that with human corrections.
> Maybe you know of some trick I don't.
Probably - I know how to write robust and resilient automation scripts that over time converge to almost 0 failures.
I have never experienced that someone wants to keep human if machine could be put to use. No, humans do not prevent mistakes for highly unimaginative repetitive work. Even if it happens, its outlier.
> It sounds like you think robust automation takes zero minutes to create, since you think of robust automation as always freeing up time. In my experience, robust automation is something that takes considerable time to create and maintain.
It takes, and it gets MUCH better with experience. However, the time is finite, unlike that with human corrections.
> Maybe you know of some trick I don't.
Probably - I know how to write robust and resilient automation scripts that over time converge to almost 0 failures.
You are making some really bold claims and you really might be an expert but I think you should open your mind to the slight possibility that others might also know what they are talking about. The OP specifically started with the premise that fast changing businesses would spend all their time fixing their automation and it might not make sense in that situation. Can’t comprehend how that doesn’t make immediate sense.
Let’s say I have a crawler which automates some data gathering. It’s sources keep changing frequently, robust automation here is probably a research project and simple automation is orders of magnitude more bang for buck.
Let’s say I have a crawler which automates some data gathering. It’s sources keep changing frequently, robust automation here is probably a research project and simple automation is orders of magnitude more bang for buck.
Meh...
Here is the exact case you mention, just WAY worst. This is something I did for chocolatey community:
https://gist.github.com/choco-bot/a14b1e5bfaf70839b338eb1ab7...
This page is report of the PowerShell framework I developed mostly in first year of development (https://github.com/majkinetor/au) that checks ~250 web sites for updates on various software. Today it has 6 errors and usually never much more. On my own location I keep ~60 packages and I I tackle errors maybe once a year. Stuff just work, and you rarely have to visit, otherwise I would be involved entire day into this and I am not, while those packages have many millions of users.
Now I spend almost 0 time maintaining packages and I am one of the top choco package owners.
Check out the options used, some of which make it so robust:
https://github.com/chocolatey-community/chocolatey-packages/...
> It’s sources keep changing frequently, robust automation here is probably a research project and simple automation is orders of magnitude more bang for buck.
Even if the source changes frequently its better to automate. Its not when it keeps changing daily or more then that. By automating you learn something new, so it pays more for your experience. Manually working every day the same thing (that may move around) doesn't involve complex thinking and is just waste of time.
Here is the exact case you mention, just WAY worst. This is something I did for chocolatey community:
https://gist.github.com/choco-bot/a14b1e5bfaf70839b338eb1ab7...
This page is report of the PowerShell framework I developed mostly in first year of development (https://github.com/majkinetor/au) that checks ~250 web sites for updates on various software. Today it has 6 errors and usually never much more. On my own location I keep ~60 packages and I I tackle errors maybe once a year. Stuff just work, and you rarely have to visit, otherwise I would be involved entire day into this and I am not, while those packages have many millions of users.
Now I spend almost 0 time maintaining packages and I am one of the top choco package owners.
Check out the options used, some of which make it so robust:
https://github.com/chocolatey-community/chocolatey-packages/...
> It’s sources keep changing frequently, robust automation here is probably a research project and simple automation is orders of magnitude more bang for buck.
Even if the source changes frequently its better to automate. Its not when it keeps changing daily or more then that. By automating you learn something new, so it pays more for your experience. Manually working every day the same thing (that may move around) doesn't involve complex thinking and is just waste of time.
> Even if the source changes frequently its better to automate. Its not when it keeps changing daily or more then that.
Now I think we can get somewhere! Is this an admission that automation is not worth it when the processes or inputs change too often?
If so, then this frequency (which you have given as daily) depend entirely on the business needs in question.
Often, there's no business case to run an automated process daily.
Weekly or even monthly are very common intervals for processes in business. For a process that needs to run monthly, you only get twelve executions in a year. If the inputs change every six months, do you still think spending 60+ commits (as in your settings example) is worth it every six months, when there are cheaper ways to do it with limited human intervention?
Now I think we can get somewhere! Is this an admission that automation is not worth it when the processes or inputs change too often?
If so, then this frequency (which you have given as daily) depend entirely on the business needs in question.
Often, there's no business case to run an automated process daily.
Weekly or even monthly are very common intervals for processes in business. For a process that needs to run monthly, you only get twelve executions in a year. If the inputs change every six months, do you still think spending 60+ commits (as in your settings example) is worth it every six months, when there are cheaper ways to do it with limited human intervention?
> Often, there's no business case to run an automated process daily.
Almost 100% of the cases I have run daily, hourly and even less (5,10,20,30 minutes schedule are common). I even had one recently that executed millions of requests to some REST API daily, running every few seconds. I call those "app supporting scripts", and I offload specific features of the main app to those.
Must be architectural thing I guess, I work as principal architect and I design most of my services so that they rely heavily on automation support.
> Is this an admission that automation is not worth it when the processes or inputs change too often?
I don't work in a vacuum. For me there are no rules about anything, context is most important (patterns, best practices etc. are for newbies). That case does lean to the manual side on first thought, but it all depends on other factors.
Almost 100% of the cases I have run daily, hourly and even less (5,10,20,30 minutes schedule are common). I even had one recently that executed millions of requests to some REST API daily, running every few seconds. I call those "app supporting scripts", and I offload specific features of the main app to those.
Must be architectural thing I guess, I work as principal architect and I design most of my services so that they rely heavily on automation support.
> Is this an admission that automation is not worth it when the processes or inputs change too often?
I don't work in a vacuum. For me there are no rules about anything, context is most important (patterns, best practices etc. are for newbies). That case does lean to the manual side on first thought, but it all depends on other factors.
Then I suspect we are in violent agreement only working on processes at different timescales in our day-to-day!
I feel like a broken record for the amount of comments I've posted related to Deming and lean product development these past few days, but as Taiichi Ohno says, the biggest waste is overproduction.
A lot of the things we build into our software is complexity nobody really needs. One way of managing it is by never making it in the first place. This takes at least two things:
- Thorough discussion with the customer about what problem they really are trying to solve. They will come to you with what they think is the solution. That way leads unnecessary complexity.
- Rough economical analysis of choices. Often we do things because that's what one ought to do. Make a quick napkin calculations. A lot of the things one ought to do are not actually necessary.
There are way too many books to recommend here, but perhaps some of the most relevant are
- Deming's The New Economics, and Out of the Crisis,
- Reinertsen's Principles of Product Development Flow,
- Ward's Lean Product and Process Development.
A lot of the things we build into our software is complexity nobody really needs. One way of managing it is by never making it in the first place. This takes at least two things:
- Thorough discussion with the customer about what problem they really are trying to solve. They will come to you with what they think is the solution. That way leads unnecessary complexity.
- Rough economical analysis of choices. Often we do things because that's what one ought to do. Make a quick napkin calculations. A lot of the things one ought to do are not actually necessary.
There are way too many books to recommend here, but perhaps some of the most relevant are
- Deming's The New Economics, and Out of the Crisis,
- Reinertsen's Principles of Product Development Flow,
- Ward's Lean Product and Process Development.
Having moved from external consult to in house dev this is so true. Most of our production systems are just spreadsheets that get emailed on schedule or trigger.
We have no web stack, no authentication required. No complex UI or UX.
It's so simple, our production manager and I sat down and came up with the system. It works very well and took a few weeks to get up and running. It would have taken months to solve the same problems with a typical web based interactive system. It's also less work and upskilling for users.
We have no web stack, no authentication required. No complex UI or UX.
It's so simple, our production manager and I sat down and came up with the system. It works very well and took a few weeks to get up and running. It would have taken months to solve the same problems with a typical web based interactive system. It's also less work and upskilling for users.
That sounds deliciously simple.
Same with a search for a to-do app I was looking for. Until I was thinking my file explorer was already great at filing, so I just add txt files and so on to order my projects. Naming is key if you want it to work well though.
I use Joplin for some more complex things, like keeping track of certain project features and progress.
Same with a search for a to-do app I was looking for. Until I was thinking my file explorer was already great at filing, so I just add txt files and so on to order my projects. Naming is key if you want it to work well though.
I use Joplin for some more complex things, like keeping track of certain project features and progress.
Curious to hear more about that system. What do you do with those spreadsheets?
It's all pretty simple. We manufacturer physical goods. Some high volume, some custom designs in an online designer with a 2 day turn around. It's all B2B.
This means various parts of our manufacturing process happen over different plants and different teams. Everyone needs to be in sync and working on the right thing. Most of the manufacturing is automated. Machine instructions are generated as orders come in. The emails send supervisors lists of what has to be worked on in that shift and department. Also they get checklists for QC, and packing instructions.
All data entry is done by scanning stickers that are generated with machine instructions and printed at manufacturing time. There is a little bit of extra info typed in for dispatch and off cut management.
It's all feed from an off the shelf ERP. Most would heavily customize the ERP. We simply hooked Jasper reports server to the db and built some custom reports. We do have some code feeding data back to the ERP.
I hope that sheds some light?
This means various parts of our manufacturing process happen over different plants and different teams. Everyone needs to be in sync and working on the right thing. Most of the manufacturing is automated. Machine instructions are generated as orders come in. The emails send supervisors lists of what has to be worked on in that shift and department. Also they get checklists for QC, and packing instructions.
All data entry is done by scanning stickers that are generated with machine instructions and printed at manufacturing time. There is a little bit of extra info typed in for dispatch and off cut management.
It's all feed from an off the shelf ERP. Most would heavily customize the ERP. We simply hooked Jasper reports server to the db and built some custom reports. We do have some code feeding data back to the ERP.
I hope that sheds some light?
Unfortunately "not implementing a feature" is not my decision most of the time.
Most of the time we need to convince some customer that we can implement what he needs because even though everything is there "they are super special".
If you start with saying no - you won't get a sale, our sales of course try to explain that we are quite successful SaaS solution so they probably could work in way we propose and won't have to pay for custom development.
Mind you that it most of the time is not purely technical but often it is checking if they can get what they want so to say "checking the waters" if we are responsible vendor.
Sometimes it is just asserting dominance by asshole manager of a big company to see how far will company bend over to win the contract.
Good part is most of the time we simply get paid for "custom development" but the downside is when 1 year or 2 later such customer goes away this code stays and is not that useful for other customers.
So even if those customers pay quite a lot for custom dev, they externalize cost of software maintenance to SaaS vendor. Because I don't believe anyone is factoring that in the price even if customer pays monthly fees for 2 years, if he goes away we are left with dead code and even removing it costs money as you still have to do regression testing.
Most of the time we need to convince some customer that we can implement what he needs because even though everything is there "they are super special".
If you start with saying no - you won't get a sale, our sales of course try to explain that we are quite successful SaaS solution so they probably could work in way we propose and won't have to pay for custom development.
Mind you that it most of the time is not purely technical but often it is checking if they can get what they want so to say "checking the waters" if we are responsible vendor.
Sometimes it is just asserting dominance by asshole manager of a big company to see how far will company bend over to win the contract.
Good part is most of the time we simply get paid for "custom development" but the downside is when 1 year or 2 later such customer goes away this code stays and is not that useful for other customers.
So even if those customers pay quite a lot for custom dev, they externalize cost of software maintenance to SaaS vendor. Because I don't believe anyone is factoring that in the price even if customer pays monthly fees for 2 years, if he goes away we are left with dead code and even removing it costs money as you still have to do regression testing.
Yes, there are difficult customers. Sometimes they're worth taking on, and sometimes it's better to tell them "best of luck in searching for what you want with someone else."
That takes said napkin calculation, and thinking a bit like an insurance business. You can't know for sure whether you'll make or lose money on a particular customer, but you can learn to work with expectations so that your bets in aggregate make you money.
That takes said napkin calculation, and thinking a bit like an insurance business. You can't know for sure whether you'll make or lose money on a particular customer, but you can learn to work with expectations so that your bets in aggregate make you money.
I would like to add “About Face : on interaction design” for a solid grounding/ guide on how to manage user expectation, project re-iteration, working within scope, and working with interfaces. Knowing what stance your app has, already makes a world of difference.
Interesting recommendations u/kqr , don’t know the last two.
Interesting recommendations u/kqr , don’t know the last two.
has anyone also included a post deploy trim phase ? even through long discussions, the client's business might be affected by the new tool in ways that may make him reevaluate workflows or distribution of work, which mean potentially reshaping the code and maybe removing more stuff.
The way I usually do it is any time I'm asked to fix bugs, make changes, or do other maintenance I first try to find out if the affected functionality is still relevant, or if the easiest fix is to throw it out.
OP here. Thank you for all of the great suggestions! I've compiled all the references into this spreadsheet:
<https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kgFSWp7rM3ZegweXAoMN...>
From my perspective, the top "must-reads" are:
-- John K Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design
-- Titus Winter (et al), Software Engineering at Google
-- Hanson and Sussman, Software Design for Flexibility
Other interesting titles that caught my eye:
-- Peter Naur, Programming as Theory Building
-- Scott Wlaschin, Domain Modeling Made Functional
-- Yehonathan Sharvit, Data-Oriented Programming: Unlearning objects (upcoming)
-- Nick Tune, Patterns, Principles, and Practises of Domain Driven Design
-- Robert L. Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering
-- Donald Reinertsen, The Principles of Product development Flow
-- Eric Normand, Grokking Simplicity
From my perspective, the top "must-reads" are:
-- John K Ousterhout, A Philosophy of Software Design
-- Titus Winter (et al), Software Engineering at Google
-- Hanson and Sussman, Software Design for Flexibility
Other interesting titles that caught my eye:
-- Peter Naur, Programming as Theory Building
-- Scott Wlaschin, Domain Modeling Made Functional
-- Yehonathan Sharvit, Data-Oriented Programming: Unlearning objects (upcoming)
-- Nick Tune, Patterns, Principles, and Practises of Domain Driven Design
-- Robert L. Glass, Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering
-- Donald Reinertsen, The Principles of Product development Flow
-- Eric Normand, Grokking Simplicity
“Software Engineering at Google” has been eye opening for me. It hits what you are looking for in its first chapter and then goes into details of different aspects in later chapters.
https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book
https://abseil.io/resources/swe-book
Summary of each chapter from the Book:
https://www.seagnotes.com/index.html
https://www.seagnotes.com/index.html
I agree with much of what's already said here.
1. Figure out the difference between your inherent and accidental complexity. The Cynefin framework can be a useful way of thinking about what types of complexity you have.
2. Attempt to reduce (or remove) the complexity at root before assuming you must model it. "The biggest tragedy in business is doing well that which should not be done at all." For example, we had an important user still on a legacy browser because they couldn't afford to upgrade their old laptop. Instead of adding a complicated legacy layer, we bought them a new laptop.
3. Think of the whole system, rather than just shifting the burden somewhere else within the system. This is why microservice architectures so often fail - engineers think they've reduced complexity because each service is so simple. Yet all they've done is move the complexity into the operational layer, where it's harder to deal with. Gerald Weinberg is a fun writer in this space.
4. In many organisations, a lot of people's salaries depend on their ability to add complexity, especially to processes but also to code. If you are working within such an organisation, you will have a Sysiphian task until you solve the organisational problem. Whether you can solve this problem depends on how much influence you have. This is why "skunkworks" projects so often work until they are re-integrated into the mainstream.
5. Once you've sorted out the organisational complexity, separated the inherent and accidental complexity, you'll be most of the way there. Keep reviewing and challenging everything. Complexity is a weed that just seems to grow unless you constantly tend to the garden.
1. Figure out the difference between your inherent and accidental complexity. The Cynefin framework can be a useful way of thinking about what types of complexity you have.
2. Attempt to reduce (or remove) the complexity at root before assuming you must model it. "The biggest tragedy in business is doing well that which should not be done at all." For example, we had an important user still on a legacy browser because they couldn't afford to upgrade their old laptop. Instead of adding a complicated legacy layer, we bought them a new laptop.
3. Think of the whole system, rather than just shifting the burden somewhere else within the system. This is why microservice architectures so often fail - engineers think they've reduced complexity because each service is so simple. Yet all they've done is move the complexity into the operational layer, where it's harder to deal with. Gerald Weinberg is a fun writer in this space.
4. In many organisations, a lot of people's salaries depend on their ability to add complexity, especially to processes but also to code. If you are working within such an organisation, you will have a Sysiphian task until you solve the organisational problem. Whether you can solve this problem depends on how much influence you have. This is why "skunkworks" projects so often work until they are re-integrated into the mainstream.
5. Once you've sorted out the organisational complexity, separated the inherent and accidental complexity, you'll be most of the way there. Keep reviewing and challenging everything. Complexity is a weed that just seems to grow unless you constantly tend to the garden.
> For example, we had an important user still on a legacy browser because they couldn't afford to upgrade their old laptop. Instead of adding a complicated legacy layer, we bought them a new laptop.
I'm curious about the specifics regarding the combination of "important user" and "couldn't afford to upgrade".
Was the user's importance social rather than financial? Were the hardware requirements particularly hefty?
I'm curious about the specifics regarding the combination of "important user" and "couldn't afford to upgrade".
Was the user's importance social rather than financial? Were the hardware requirements particularly hefty?
Any recommendations re: Weinberg and complexity? I've read his book on consulting, which was really well written.
He has a whole series on Quality Software which, admittedly, I only came about a third of the way through before I took a break for other books, but it has contained some useful analysis so far. I do plan on picking it up again once I'm done with my current read.
A philosophy of software design by John Ousterhout https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1732102201/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_...
The entire focus of the book is reducing complexity.
The entire focus of the book is reducing complexity.
This might seem more basic/beginner level but I really have enjoyed working through How To Design Programs. [1] It teaches you how to think about data, types, abstraction, and creating mini languages/sets of functions for robust, adjustable, and maintainable code. It's helped me immensely as I've started to build much more complicated stuff. It's amazing how you can follow the design recipies, break problems into parts, plug functions together, everything just works. Applying these principles in a typed language (TypeScript) has massively improved my ability to much more complex stuff that is also more safe and maintainable.
[1]: https://htdp.org/
[1]: https://htdp.org/
[deleted]
Peter Naur's "Programming as Theory Building" is a classic essay, and absolutely worth reading. This transcription [1] (with some extra remarks at the end by the transcriptor?) is pretty accessible.
[1] https://pablo.rauzy.name/dev/naur1985programming.pdf
[1] https://pablo.rauzy.name/dev/naur1985programming.pdf
At an organizational level, Donald Reinertsen "the principles of product development flow" is outstanding.
https://books.google.de/books/about/The_Principles_of_Produc...
It motivates small batch sizes, decision making at ground level, short cycle times, all the mechanics behind kanban, scrum, XP, without ever using any of their jargon.
And it moves up into economics by explaining e.g. cost of delay as a metric guiding useful decision making.
The book eatablishes a wonderful shared understanding of the principles underlying lean and agile, why they work and how to make them work, shared understanding between engineering and management.
https://books.google.de/books/about/The_Principles_of_Produc...
It motivates small batch sizes, decision making at ground level, short cycle times, all the mechanics behind kanban, scrum, XP, without ever using any of their jargon.
And it moves up into economics by explaining e.g. cost of delay as a metric guiding useful decision making.
The book eatablishes a wonderful shared understanding of the principles underlying lean and agile, why they work and how to make them work, shared understanding between engineering and management.
Architectural perspective:
Clean Architecture: A Craftsman’s Guide to Software Structure and Design https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/clean-architecture-a/97...
Organizational perspective:
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson https://press.stripe.com/an-elegant-puzzle
Clean Architecture: A Craftsman’s Guide to Software Structure and Design https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/clean-architecture-a/97...
Organizational perspective:
An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management by Will Larson https://press.stripe.com/an-elegant-puzzle
Re: An Elegant Puzzle: If you remember, could you please write a bit about the key insights from it?
Not the person you're asking, but I was actually somewhat underwhelmed by that book. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations, but I felt like it combined very general, obvious ideas ("keep teams together") with oddly specific numeric recommendations ("a manager doing technical work in addition to management can support at most five people") that didn't come with any good evidence beyond author opinion.
There were some things that I did find reason to take notes on, such as:
- Each area of responsibility should have a team dedicated to it, even if some teams end up having zero people in them, and sometimes members from other teams have to rotate into that function. I liked this because I know how easy it is to forget that some functions are understaffed if you squeeze them in with other functions.
- If you want to improve how the larger organisation works, run the improvement as an experiment in your team and then publish a very brief report on the results along with instructions for how other teams can try it. I liked this because I've often done the first part, but I've often forgotten the publishing part.
- A leader is asked to decide a million things a day. Your job is not the make those decisions, your job is to figure out a system in which the decision is not needed, or the right decision is clear for anyone to see, and then help others participate in that system. I knew this from before, but it bears repeating because it's so easy to forget in the heat of decision-making.
(The last point has a more general corollary: your job is never to do what you were hired for, it's to teach others how to do what you were hired for.)
There were some things that I did find reason to take notes on, such as:
- Each area of responsibility should have a team dedicated to it, even if some teams end up having zero people in them, and sometimes members from other teams have to rotate into that function. I liked this because I know how easy it is to forget that some functions are understaffed if you squeeze them in with other functions.
- If you want to improve how the larger organisation works, run the improvement as an experiment in your team and then publish a very brief report on the results along with instructions for how other teams can try it. I liked this because I've often done the first part, but I've often forgotten the publishing part.
- A leader is asked to decide a million things a day. Your job is not the make those decisions, your job is to figure out a system in which the decision is not needed, or the right decision is clear for anyone to see, and then help others participate in that system. I knew this from before, but it bears repeating because it's so easy to forget in the heat of decision-making.
(The last point has a more general corollary: your job is never to do what you were hired for, it's to teach others how to do what you were hired for.)
I found "An Elegant Puzzle" brilliant because the advice was so specific and concrete on a wide range of topics. But I'd guess the target audience is a leader in a mid-size startup (100-500 employees), so its advice isn't going to be so much help outside that group.
Written by the authors of sicp:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/software-design-flexibility
Organization is just a name for a group of methodologies. Ultimately what we want is the right way to organize programs for maximum flexibility.
Organization is just a name for a group of methodologies. Ultimately what we want is the right way to organize programs for maximum flexibility.
I really like that tagline, "How to avoid programming yourself into a corner." Sometimes I've made stuff that I've hacked and hacked together until it barely works and it feels like you're just straining harder and harder to get it workable and then there's this sinking feeling of, "oh dear, I can never touch or change this or everything will crumble into an irreparable mess." Learning the SICP/HTDP way of creating a "language" to handle your problem with changed everything for me. It helps you to clearly lay out and work with the particular kinds of operations that your problem (and its variations) require.
As Hal Abelson explains in this podcast: [1]
> So you really take the attitude that, boy if I’m writing something complex, I need to think about what I’m doing as if I’m writing a language. Or just say that a little less onerously. When I think about the operations I want to produce in any kind of program I’m writing, I don’t want to think about only that particular problem I’m doing right then. I want to carve out a space that’s broad enough that I could be doing that particular problem and lots of variations and lots of similar ones.
[1]: https://corecursive.com/039-hal-abelson-sicp
> So you really take the attitude that, boy if I’m writing something complex, I need to think about what I’m doing as if I’m writing a language. Or just say that a little less onerously. When I think about the operations I want to produce in any kind of program I’m writing, I don’t want to think about only that particular problem I’m doing right then. I want to carve out a space that’s broad enough that I could be doing that particular problem and lots of variations and lots of similar ones.
[1]: https://corecursive.com/039-hal-abelson-sicp
Agreed. That tagline is what entire corporations do. They program their entire ecosystem into a corner and it demands an entire rewrite or refactor.
Out of the tar pit is the best paper on this I’ve ever read: http://curtclifton.net/papers/MoseleyMarks06a.pdf
This paper revolutionized my perspective on software engineering and ultimately how our company does business.
If you want to skip to the good part, Chapter 9 is where you want to be.
We were able to create a hybrid FRP system that uses SQLite & application-defined functions as the sandbox within which all of this hypothetical functional/relational business occurs. This is in production for several of our customers right now.
If you want to skip to the good part, Chapter 9 is where you want to be.
We were able to create a hybrid FRP system that uses SQLite & application-defined functions as the sandbox within which all of this hypothetical functional/relational business occurs. This is in production for several of our customers right now.
Actually I think chapters 1–8 are more valuable than the chapters dealing with a concrete implementation because they teach you ideas and principles
Very good suggestion !
I would add Frederick Brooks' No Silver Bullet alongside this for better understanding.
I would add Frederick Brooks' No Silver Bullet alongside this for better understanding.
I think it is worthwhile to first look into the fields of Complexity Science/Complex Systems Science and Systems Thinking/Systems Theory for overarching insights : [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system and https://complexityexplained.github.io/ ] and [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_thinking and https://thesystemsthinker.com/systems-thinking-what-why-when... ]
For Software specific issues i highly recommend David Parnas' collected papers in the book Software Fundamentals. He and his colleagues defined much of what is mainstream in today's Software Architecture/Organization practice.
Finally, the case studies given here are a great source of insights: https://aosabook.org/en/index.html
For Software specific issues i highly recommend David Parnas' collected papers in the book Software Fundamentals. He and his colleagues defined much of what is mainstream in today's Software Architecture/Organization practice.
Finally, the case studies given here are a great source of insights: https://aosabook.org/en/index.html
Am I doing something wrong if I'm unable to find that Parnas collection as a digital book? I've read some of his papers and they were very influential on me. Would love the book but I rarely have the energy to bring a print copy of books.
In this case the "paper copy" of the book is very much worth it :-) The articles are all foundational, timeless and gets to the heart of the matter unlike most books today.
These are more architecture focused but maybe relevant.
The Phoenix Project. The DevOps Handbook. The Google SRE Book. And “Kill It With Fire.”
The Phoenix Project. The DevOps Handbook. The Google SRE Book. And “Kill It With Fire.”
I’ve been liking Grokking Simplicity so far. It starts out by separating code into three parts: data, computations, side-effects.
You want to minimize side-effects, preferring computations over them, and data over computations.
I’m still early into it, however, this already has been a helpful lens to view my code through.
https://www.manning.com/books/grokking-simplicity
You want to minimize side-effects, preferring computations over them, and data over computations.
I’m still early into it, however, this already has been a helpful lens to view my code through.
https://www.manning.com/books/grokking-simplicity
I found this one very good: A Philosophy of Software Design
https://www.amazon.com/dp/173210221X
https://www.amazon.com/dp/173210221X
Michael Feather's book on legacy code contains a lot of advice that ought to be obvious, and yet every time I'm handed a scary piece of complex legacy software, I leaf through Feather's book and I almost always find something useful.
This book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44919.Working_Effectivel...
You can also google up a fair amount of related blog text, and video talks content.
You can also google up a fair amount of related blog text, and video talks content.
The Pragmatic Programmer
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pragmatic-Programmer-Andrew-Hunt/dp...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pragmatic-Programmer-Andrew-Hunt/dp...
Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans
I found DDD very poorly written. It's a nightmare slog to read. I find Evans isn't a gifted writer and thinks unedited rambling is appropriate for a textbook. The 600 pages could easily have been 100. DDD can also be a poison to core systems, and Evans never considers this (I don't think he knows it). If you try to encode business domains, service lines, product names, stakeholder role names, what have you, into your core software, now you can't iterate on the business, because it requires refactoring the core. Building generic platforms with minimal "domain" (whatever that term means, Evans can't even define it) concerns in it, and keeping the business logic as far in user configuration land as possible, gives a business more flexibility and a better chance at surviving.
I don’t believe that Evans was arguing for pulling every concern in the wider system into a single model (the last third of the book gives techniques for overall system architecture). Different service lines, or products, would surely belong in distinct bounded contexts in DDD.
> keeping the business logic as far in user configuration land as possible
This sounds dreadfully difficult to build and test. The kind of business rules engine that you’re describing is more likely to be overpriced and buggy than a simpler well-modeled set of core domain classes imo.
Not every piece of software should be excel.
> keeping the business logic as far in user configuration land as possible
This sounds dreadfully difficult to build and test. The kind of business rules engine that you’re describing is more likely to be overpriced and buggy than a simpler well-modeled set of core domain classes imo.
Not every piece of software should be excel.
I've only had one experience with DDD at an company that was very interested in it and trying to push it into their codebase, and kind of 'righteous' about it. Zealots in other words but unfortunately they didn't have enough real world experience to know what actually worked well in their context.. just cargo culting.
They had a project in planning for 18 months but hadn't been able to start it. I was hired as a principal and given this one of my major impacts to deliver, though other things kept getting piled on in front of it. To actually get it done one weekend I sat down and cranked out a functioning POC that could easily and rapidly be extend into the fully working system.
Come Monday they were blown away to see the major progress of an actual working system, and loved the system and were very happy about it. Then the bike-shedding began, an order of magnitude more person hours was spent talking about it than it took me to build it and they required rewriting it because they a data library I used 'old tech and uncool'..
Hilariously that data library was actually a DDD system that created bounded contexts and enforced a domain model in them, but due to their lack of understanding they didn't see that! The hilarious irony!
I wasn't a DDD guy, though having been a high level architect for 15 years I was using all the things I have found that worked best. Some time later I was reading about DDD and realised that system was actually DDD. Of course by that time I had already left, to deliver working systems instead of waste time bike-shedding with cargo culters!
They had a project in planning for 18 months but hadn't been able to start it. I was hired as a principal and given this one of my major impacts to deliver, though other things kept getting piled on in front of it. To actually get it done one weekend I sat down and cranked out a functioning POC that could easily and rapidly be extend into the fully working system.
Come Monday they were blown away to see the major progress of an actual working system, and loved the system and were very happy about it. Then the bike-shedding began, an order of magnitude more person hours was spent talking about it than it took me to build it and they required rewriting it because they a data library I used 'old tech and uncool'..
Hilariously that data library was actually a DDD system that created bounded contexts and enforced a domain model in them, but due to their lack of understanding they didn't see that! The hilarious irony!
I wasn't a DDD guy, though having been a high level architect for 15 years I was using all the things I have found that worked best. Some time later I was reading about DDD and realised that system was actually DDD. Of course by that time I had already left, to deliver working systems instead of waste time bike-shedding with cargo culters!
I would love to know how many members of that team read the book cover-to-cover. I’m consistent surprised by how many developers invoke a particular methodology without having sone the work to understand it.
In particular, I’ve gone through very similar experiences where functional-programming was the silver bullet that secretly no one understood.
In particular, I’ve gone through very similar experiences where functional-programming was the silver bullet that secretly no one understood.
I am now in an organization that is cargo-culting DDD, and this serves well layers of middle management pretty much the same way as OpenAPU or asyncapi.
Anything which is not code gets used as a pretext to not do actual work.
Anything which is not code gets used as a pretext to not do actual work.
I think a lot of people suggest Patterns, Principles, and Practises of Domain Driven Design instead.
The Evans book is sort of written backwards, in that it starts with a bunch of powerful tactical tools and people stop reading halfway through which means now all they have is a hammer.
The PPPoDDD book instead starts out with reasoning about when DDD is appropriate and when it's not, to dive into the tactical patterns last, once the other options are eliminated. I think that approach makes much more sense.
After all, most of the skill in a technique consists in knowing when to apply that technique, and, critically, when not to.
The PPPoDDD book also places a heavy emphasis on having productive conversations with businesspeople as a design tool. I think Evans accidentally underemphasises that too.
The Evans book is sort of written backwards, in that it starts with a bunch of powerful tactical tools and people stop reading halfway through which means now all they have is a hammer.
The PPPoDDD book instead starts out with reasoning about when DDD is appropriate and when it's not, to dive into the tactical patterns last, once the other options are eliminated. I think that approach makes much more sense.
After all, most of the skill in a technique consists in knowing when to apply that technique, and, critically, when not to.
The PPPoDDD book also places a heavy emphasis on having productive conversations with businesspeople as a design tool. I think Evans accidentally underemphasises that too.
"Large-Scale C++ Volume I: Process and Architecture" by John Lakos
I loved that book! But it is unfortunately not a book for everyone, since it has ~1000 pages. It contains both one of the best architecture discussions (IMHO) and a ton of C++ specific advice/rules. So for someone that doesn't have a large C++ code bad, Ousterhouts book is the better suggestion.
How specific is this book to C++? Would you still recommend it to someone who doesn’t work with C++?
It contains lots of c++ specific advice but also general good architecture advice. I would recommend it if you have already read Ousterhouts 'A philosophy of Software design' and maybe one more book and are still curious about the topic. Also there is something of a summary, by himself here: https://youtu.be/d3zMfMC8l5U
Domain Modeling Made Functional - Scott Wlaschin
This is great especially if you're deep into the OOP way of building everything - Java, .NET, ... Really gives a whole another perspective.
Not a book, but this paper “big ball of mud” has resonated with me in describing troubles I’ve faced before, and has me coming back to it as I run into new architectural problems where I’m not confident in my/our approach.
http://www.laputan.org/mud/
http://www.laputan.org/mud/
The "original" Scrum book
https://read.amazon.com/kp/card?asin=0130676349Q&preview=inl...
Stuff on lean manufacturing (yes. manufacturing!) https://www.amazon.de/dp/B000SEGIVS?ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_ocvTD...
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B002LHRM2O?ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_I9SSD...
Stuff on lean manufacturing (yes. manufacturing!) https://www.amazon.de/dp/B000SEGIVS?ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_ocvTD...
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B002LHRM2O?ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_I9SSD...
This is a book that focuses on managing software complexity and to "avoid painting oneself into a corner":
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/software-design-flexibility
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/software-design-flexibility
- Philosophy of Software Design (great short read packed with insight)
- Mythical Man-Month (the classic, a little outdated but the principles still ring very true)
- Software Engineering at Google (thoughts from a company that has spent a lot of time thinking about this at scale)
- Mythical Man-Month (the classic, a little outdated but the principles still ring very true)
- Software Engineering at Google (thoughts from a company that has spent a lot of time thinking about this at scale)
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-15-5856-6_... Has a bunch of useful references. Olivier de Weck of the MIT held an awesome conference speech at the 2016 MIT SDM Conference explaining sources, metrics and cost of organizational complexity linked to engineering complexity. Sadly, the video no longer appears online. But the work of him and his group (references in the article above) is highly relevant to your question.
I haven't read any of the books on architecture recommended in this thread, but I learned how to manage software complexity by:
1. Counter-intuitively, being deeply interested and reading about a topic in natural science. Software is complex because it is a system, and especially if you're using a programming language with plenty of OOP features, you're going to benefit a lot from understanding how nature separates properties and functions into organic matter, how they work in concert to achieve a particular effect, and how they compose each other to scale up from the atomic to the cosmic scale; or
2. If you can't be bothered to learn about topics beyond programming itself, then practice unit testing. As a matter fact, attempt to write unit tests for your old code. If you can't make the unit test run, then that's life slapping you in the face to tell you that your code is way too tightly-coupled.
By the end of the day, doing any of the above things (but more so, both!) will teach you the true essence of KISS.
1. Counter-intuitively, being deeply interested and reading about a topic in natural science. Software is complex because it is a system, and especially if you're using a programming language with plenty of OOP features, you're going to benefit a lot from understanding how nature separates properties and functions into organic matter, how they work in concert to achieve a particular effect, and how they compose each other to scale up from the atomic to the cosmic scale; or
2. If you can't be bothered to learn about topics beyond programming itself, then practice unit testing. As a matter fact, attempt to write unit tests for your old code. If you can't make the unit test run, then that's life slapping you in the face to tell you that your code is way too tightly-coupled.
By the end of the day, doing any of the above things (but more so, both!) will teach you the true essence of KISS.
The nature approach sounds intriguing, any pointers on where to start or what to read?
It has to be a topic of interest specifically for you, otherwise you’ll probably just get bored and stop halfway through. For me it was exercise science. It was a super fascinating and mind-opening journey for me from skeletal muscle contractions to how the body burns calories, to how to program weight training exercises, how to make my own diet program and throwing away all the hype around it, etc.
I can imagine that for others it might be just straight up neuroscience, or something zoology if you like pets, or physics. The idea is to try to see these natural phenomena as running code, and to think of how nature designed and wrote the code to make it all work. I can see how the approach sounds absurd, but maybe video game developers would be able to relate to what I’m saying since (I assume) they do a lot of world-building and have to make simulations of real-world objects.
I can imagine that for others it might be just straight up neuroscience, or something zoology if you like pets, or physics. The idea is to try to see these natural phenomena as running code, and to think of how nature designed and wrote the code to make it all work. I can see how the approach sounds absurd, but maybe video game developers would be able to relate to what I’m saying since (I assume) they do a lot of world-building and have to make simulations of real-world objects.
No, doesn't sound absurd at all - there are even explicit connections between this type of "organic" complexity and the software world, like evolutionary algorithms and agent based models, for example. A while ago, I looked into the topic of complexity in a general way and found a biology book called "Structures of Complexity: A Morphology of Recognition and Explanation" by Rupert Riedl, which is very in-depth on the biological approach to complexity. In fact a little to in-depth for quick extraction of practical concepts.
But looking at something personal and concrete like exercise makes total sense, thanks!
But looking at something personal and concrete like exercise makes total sense, thanks!
It doesn't even have to be nature -- I learned a lot about managing complexity from The Death and Life of Great American Cities which is about city planning!
Ah, Jane Jacobs.. had that in my reading list for a very long time, but that's an interesting point with regards to complexity .. thanks!
Bob Martins stuff is good, like Clean Architecture https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Architecture-Craftsmans-Softwar...
https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2012/08/13/the-clean-a...
https://blog.cleancoder.com/uncle-bob/2012/08/13/the-clean-a...
Surprised nobody have mentioned Making software, https://www.amazon.com/Making-Software-Really-Works-Believe/...
It takes a empirical view on the software process. Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster? Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software? Do design patterns actually make better software?
It takes a empirical view on the software process. Does writing tests first help you develop better code faster? Can code metrics predict the number of bugs in a piece of software? Do design patterns actually make better software?
First keep it simple, shameless self plug: https://www.radicalsimpli.city/
Michael C. Feathers - Working Effectively with Legacy Code
Scott Wlaschin - Domain Modeling Made Functional: Tackle Software Complexity with Domain-Driven Design and F#
Scott Wlaschin - Domain Modeling Made Functional: Tackle Software Complexity with Domain-Driven Design and F#
Eric Normand - Grokking Simplicity: Taming complex software with functional thinking
I also bought the Scott Wlaschin book, but I must say I like Eric Normand's book a little bit better. Since the examples are also in JavaScript (but applicable to a lot of languages), I think it's easier to follow for everyone who's coming from an OOP background.
I'm also looking forward to Yehonathan Sharvit - Data-Oriented Programming: Unlearning objects.
I also bought the Scott Wlaschin book, but I must say I like Eric Normand's book a little bit better. Since the examples are also in JavaScript (but applicable to a lot of languages), I think it's easier to follow for everyone who's coming from an OOP background.
I'm also looking forward to Yehonathan Sharvit - Data-Oriented Programming: Unlearning objects.
Do you want to find out about managing a bad case of complexity in an existing project? Or are you searching for ways to avoid getting into a bad place with sw complexity and looking for even radical simplicity because you are determinde to avoid (or can't afford) complexity?
These are quite different missions since it's rarely possible to recover form complexity if you've already gone there.
These are quite different missions since it's rarely possible to recover form complexity if you've already gone there.
As a baseline on what is know and not know about managing software projects, I always recommend Robert L. Glass Facts and Fallacies of Software Engineering.
More speculatively, I think that the following biology readings are inspiring:
- Gerald Jay Sussman, Building Robust Systems an essay. In general, biology should be a source of inspiration for engineers.
- E. Goldratt, The Goal
More speculatively, I think that the following biology readings are inspiring:
- Gerald Jay Sussman, Building Robust Systems an essay. In general, biology should be a source of inspiration for engineers.
- E. Goldratt, The Goal
Software complexity is often made worse by organisational complexity. Someone put it as "make sure people do complex jobs in simple organisations rather than the other way around.
David Marquet's books have been surprisingly helpful to me in shaping simpler organisations, starting, of course, with Turn the Ship Around.
David Marquet's books have been surprisingly helpful to me in shaping simpler organisations, starting, of course, with Turn the Ship Around.
I suggest looking into: https://www.amazon.com/Righting-Software-Juval-L%C3%B6wy/dp/...
It's very unorthodox, but cuts through a lot of the bullshit.
It's very unorthodox, but cuts through a lot of the bullshit.
I touch on both these perspectives in my book ‘Risk-First Software Development’. You can read all it online at https://riskfirst.org if you want.
Hope this is useful to you.
Hope this is useful to you.
At least from where I'm at (ex-SWE, quit at a relatively junior level), I'm not sure this is something you can read about and reason logically. It's something you need to a feel for through experience.
It's a long shot, but is anyone aware of useful MOOCs that cover this topic?
Grady Booch “OO Analysis & Design”
Classics
Classics
Best book is task description how to add small feature to your project. If it’s still clear and easy, then you don’t need to read any books about software complexity management ).
Object Thinking by David West