Ask HN: Best books on managing software complexity?

Post by kqr » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 6:17 AM UTC

CyberDildonics wrote: post #117

kqr wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

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.

Post by CyberDildonics » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 3:13 PM UTC

kqr wrote: post #121

CyberDildonics wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Post by CyberDildonics » Mon, Feb 07, 2022, 5:32 PM UTC

zenkat wrote: post #124

CyberDildonics wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wow, people on the internet really will argue about anything. @kqr, thank you for your insights. While it's not exactly relevant to my problem domain (self-driving cars - lots of essential complexity there!), it's still generally useful advice. Software is expensive to write, but it's even more expensive to maintain. That's why my favorite projects are those that delete large amounts of now-useless code. Not writing…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Feb 11, 2022, 3:01 PM UTC

mdaniel wrote: post #7

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