Name: The Design of Design
ISBN: 9780201362985

The Design of Design

Effective design is at the heart of everything from software development to engineering to architecture. But what do we really know about the design process? What leads to effective, elegant designs - and what doesn't? In The Design of Design, the legendary Fred Brooks takes on these questions - and does for design what his classic best-seller The Mythical Man-Month did for project management. In a series of essays reminiscent of the approach he took in The Mythical Man-Month, Brooks illuminates hidden issues that designers face in every discipline, and uncovers processes and patterns most likely to lead to excellence. In his first major book in more than three decades, Brooks addresses the design process as it has evolved today -- including new issues and opportunities that accompany team-based and distributed design of complex systems. Drawing on the experiences and intuitions of dozens of exceptional designers, Brooks argues convincingly that better outcomes now require bolder design decisions. Brooks shares new important insights about constraints, budgets, design empiricism, aesthetics and style, tools, and more - including two powerful essays on what makes designers great, and where great designers come from. The book concludes with six case study "trips" through design spaces ranging from beach houses to IBM's Operating System/360 - the project that made Brooks famous some four decades ago.

What Hacker News says

olauDec 2024

> I don't know this reference

Right there is your problem. Read the Mythical Man-Month and Design of Design. They are not long books and it's material that's hard to find elsewhere. Old rat tacit knowledge.

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joebigSep 2024

Gordon Glegg was a design lecturer in the Engineering Department during the 1960s and 1970s. He was a very successful designer and an extremely charismatic speaker. Every lecture was illustrated with delightful anecdotes, many related to his early fascination with motorsport. His lectures were always packed out!

He instigated a voluntary conceptual design course that ran in the afternoons and proved to be very popular. After he retired, this course was introduced as a permanent part of the 1st year course in the Department and runs to this day.

He wrote four insightful short books that are still relevant today: The Design of Design (1969) The Selection of Design (1972) The Science of Design (1973) and The Development of Design (1981).

For several years after he retired, he was asked to come back and repeat his design lectures. It was decided to video record his lectures on the last occasion he returned. When the tapes were eventually retrieved, they had deteriorated very badly and only one 46-minute section could be saved. Despite the poor quality, his character, style and enthusiasm shine through. This clip contains his famous example of what he referred to as the ‘fitness of things’ or a ‘good idea’, namely the stealing of rolls of plastic flooring from a locked warehouse!

We hope this short clip will bring back happy memories of a remarkable and inspirational design lecturer.

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sargstuffFeb 2024

For non-management related things: "Mythical Man-Month, The: Essays on Software Engineering" by Frederick Brooks Jr.

"Code Complete" by Steve McConnell

"The Design of Design" by Fred Brooks

"Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of Software Engineering Manager" by Michael Lopp

"The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary" by Eric S. Raymond

"Assessment and Control of Software Risks" by Capers Jones

"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by G.J. Sussman et al.

"The Pragmatic Programmer" by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas

"A Philosophy of Software Design" by Jhon Ousterhout