Design paradigms

What Hacker News says

1. ilove_banh_miAug 2018
   Whenever there is a bridge failure (or similar, highly-visible civil engineering failure) I recommend to engineers of all stripes that they go read the works of Henry Petroski. In particular:

   - To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design (1985) [1]

   - Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering (1994) [2]

   and

   - Engineers of Dreams: Great Bridge Builders and The Spanning of America (1995) [3]

   He also wrote a salient op-ed after the 2007 bridge failure in Minneapolis: Learning from bridge failure. [4]

   [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679734163

   [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521466490

   [3] https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679760210

   [4] http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-petroski4aug04-story.html

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2. MaroMar 2018
   One of the best general Engineering books I've read is 'Design Paradigms'. It's an excellent book about the importance of understanding failures in Engineering. The author is Professor of Civil Engineering and a professor of history at Duke University, so all the examples are roads/bridges/etc.

   As a Data/SWE guy, I still enjoyed reading it a lot.

   https://www.amazon.com/Design-Paradigms-Histories-Judgment-E...

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3. bzalaskyNov 2014
   Invention by Design; How Engineers Get from Thought to Thing by Henry Petroski:

   http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Design-Engineers-Thought-Thi...

   Previously, I've read his book Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering:

   http://www.amazon.com/Design-Paradigms-Histories-Judgment-En...

   I can't speak on the former yet, but the latter is excellent, and provides a framework for analyzing failures in engineering judgment (regardless of whether you're talking about bridges or software). I've also been working through The Little Schemer.

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4. stiffFeb 2014
   The last sentence from this piece is just beautiful, it has become my personal motto:

   For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

   It captures in a capsule form the reasons for a huge fraction of all the big engineering catastrophes, maybe even most of them. For everyone interested in similar case studies, and in reliability from a wide engineering perspective, I strongly recommend the book "Design Paradigms: Case Histories of Error and Judgment in Engineering" by Henry Petroski.

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