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Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

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Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#1

Post by jakobov »

Hey there..

I have started writing a book on software design/architecture that provides a different perspective than existing books out there. The thesis of the book is that "code is for humans". The book explains how to write code that is optimal for our primitive monkey brains. The book describes how many of the best practices in software stem from deficiencies in our cognitive abilities. It expands on best practices such as (DRY, SSOT, etc) and brings new ideas on what is good code and how to write it.

I am looking for someone to partner with on this book as it's a huge project and I would love to be able to split the work.

I have written a rough outline and filled in about 40 pages of notes, examples and text. The project is still very much in it's infancy.

A bit about me: I worked as the software architect of a 100+ person team at Mobileye/Intel and have many, many years of experience working on a variety of software from self driving cars to web apps.

Re: Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#2

Post by mion »

Congratulations on the work! I’ve been doing startups for +10 years but also worked in big companies. This is pretty interesting, how do we contact you?

One thing I really wish I had learned from a book is how to adapt the architecture to the current stage the company is in (something like this likely exists but IDK).

For instance, the “brittleness” of your systems must follow the “certainty” the company has on product-market fit. In other words, if the % of changing code is high then it should be cheap to change it. I could explain this in much more detail, and I have seen countless under-engineering and over-engineering issues in practice because people lack this mental model.

Re: Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#5

Post by eimrine »

Hi! I am considering myself as a generalist, that means jack of all trades but master of none. I do not work as a programmer and never did but I love to study computer sciences.

I think your book with best practices also must contain something about TDD, Lisp macroses vs C++ ones, some bits of knowledge on system programming, and how software makes our world worse because of abandoning engineer culture in craft of software development. I do not think I can be a co-author, but I might help you if you have some interdisciplinary questions or if you need somebody to read your drafts.

English is not my mother language so do not expect great writing skills from me but if you have some unanswered questions from fields of general knowledge I will do my best to let your project be as good as you have claimed.

Re: Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#6

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

That's like walking into a kindergarten class, and yelling "Who wants ice cream?"

You will not suffer for volunteers.

I'm probably not one of them. I've done that kind of thing, before, and I sincerely wish you luck, but my own dance card is fairly full.

Re: Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#7

Post by smoochy »

I may. I wrote a book once. Hard work. I think you may need an editor, rather than a co-author. Someone who'd proofread and rearrange every sentence of every paragraph of every page of every chapter. And do it 10 or more times for each of those sentences, paragraphs, pages and chapters - before it can be published even as beta. Furthermore, as we all know, senior engineers disagree vastly on so many tiny little things: preferences, practices, routines, while simultaneously agreeing on some deeper inherent truths. But keeping that in mind, co-authoring may work out kinda like Rustin Cohle and Marty Hart worked out in True Detective - in the end. Question is, what kind of journey are you up for. And where am I.

Drop me a line, the email is on my website orion3.space

Re: Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#8

Post by quickthrower2 »

Something that I would find useful along these lines is: how does a team with a legacy codebase which may not be nice for human in many places pay down the tech debt?

Most companies have tightly couple code, only partial test coverage and slow build times (builds bloat until the pain is too painful and it is reigned in but that is too far)

There is a technical and a social aspect to this. Telling the boss we will ship fewer features etc. as we are doing stuff for future maintainers and better on boarding.

Re: Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#9

Post by cpach »

kkokosa wrote: post #4

Hi, how can I contant you? Or maybe you can reach me out on Twitter - https://twitter.com/konradkokosa ?

Friendly suggestion: Consider listing your contact details in your HN profile.

Please note that it’s not enough to fill in the email field on your profile. Only the HN admins can see that field.

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27106893

Re: Ask HN: Interested on writing a book on software design/architecture together?

#10

Post by smoochy »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #6

That's like walking into a kindergarten class, and yelling "Who wants ice cream?" You will not suffer for volunteers. I'm probably not one of them. I've done that kind of thing, before, and I sincerely wish you luck, but my own dance card is fairly full.

My only ally in this life has always been serendipity. That's why I replied to this post. It's a simple post. Ice cream is simple. Kindergartens are simple. On their surface, of course. You ever watched "Kindergarten Cop"? Try and watch it and remember that scene where Arnold reads a poem. Find that poem. Read it whole.

Sometimes things that appear shallow bring about the deepest truths: if you take effort not to ignore what you're looking at, what you're hearing at the moment, if try not to ignore all your other senses. Suspension of disbelief is crucial, ESPECIALLY if you want to write something - even non-fiction. Or else, how do you expect your readers to do the same and believe your words or least consider them, if even you yourself cannot do that little trick?

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