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The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist |  | Author: Frederick P. Brooks
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional
Category: Book
List Price: $34.99
Buy New: $24.89
as of 9/9/2010 06:21 MDT details
You Save: $10.10 (29%)
New (33) Used (12) from $23.50
Seller: ach7768
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 2720
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0201362988
Dewey Decimal Number: 620.0042
EAN: 9780201362985
ASIN: 0201362988
Publication Date: April 1, 2010
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Making Sense 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? The Design of Design addresses these questions. These new essays by Fred Brooks contain extraordinary insights for designers in every discipline. Brooks pinpoints constants inherent in all design projects and uncovers processes and patterns likely to lead to excellence. Drawing on conversations with dozens of exceptional designers, as well as his own experiences in several design domains, Brooks observes that bold design decisions lead to better outcomes. The author tracks the evolution of the design process, treats collaborative and distributed design, and illuminates what makes a truly great designer. He examines the nuts and bolts of design processes, including budget constraints of many kinds, aesthetics, design empiricism, and tools, and grounds this discussion in his own real-world examples—case studies ranging from home construction to IBM's Operating System/360. Throughout, Brooks reveals keys to success that every designer, design project manager, and design researcher should know.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
 Needs focus August 19, 2010
mattismyname
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
There are large sections that are not at all useful. For example the chapters detailing the endless minutiae of his architectural exploits. Two or three of the better chapters are worth reading. You'd be better off not buying the book and just reading those chapters at your local library or bookstore.
 Any computer library catering to software engineers needs this! August 15, 2010
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist provide new essays by Fred Brooks that offer insights for designers, from patterns consistent in the design process to the hallmarks of an exceptional design. Chapters provide software engineers with insights on the evolution of the design process, budgeting constraints, aesthetics, and more, offering essays that analyze the process of producing exceptional design. Any computer library catering to software engineers needs this!
 The essence July 25, 2010
Baljeet Sandhu (New York)
It's a well written and substantial book. Deep personal experiences and clear writing style make it a winner.
I tried to outline the essence of the book here.
[...]
If you are like me, you can use this as checklist to see areas of improvement in your project.
Unique although the prose could be better July 14, 2010
Marc Magrans De Abril
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
First, I recommend the book. It is pretty nice to read, except for the sections about how he designed his own house :P... sorry, I am not interested about that.
I put a four instead of a five, because the book is written in purpose as a series of short self-contained stories/anecdotes. However, there is not a clear discourse path that combine them.
Is this is the first book you want to read about design and management issues in software projects, I rather recommend the following list: The mythical man-month, Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies, Peopleware, and finally the design of design
Essential reading for 21st century thinkers and doers June 7, 2010
Michael Tiemann (Chapel Hill, NC United States)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
In 1989 I started a new kind of software company, and considering that I had no financial, business, nor management experience, things went fairly well. Indeed, we doubled revenue every year for the first five years and grew from 3 people to more than 60. Somewhere along the line we hit our first real management crisis, and I was given the assignment to read The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) as a first step in understanding why our scheduling and deliverables process had become so protracted and precarious.
It was an eye opener, and it gave me my first real understanding of the fundamental limits of the industrial model. (Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals was the second, and perhaps even more profound.) Thus, when I discovered that Brooks had written a new book to treat one of my favorite new topics--Design--I decided to order it right away. Then, while it was sitting in my shopping cart, I read through some of the comments, and though several of them spread doubt about the quality or validity of this latest effort, I decided that I would risk the purchase. And I am glad I did.
I recently gave a four star review to another book on the topic of design: Roger Martin's latest book The Design of Business: Why Design Thinking is the Next Competitive Advantage. I felt bad about doing so because there is so much to like about that book and so much I appreciate about Martin's teachings. But the book did not strike me as one the best possible treatment of the subject, so I gave it only four stars. By that measure, I'm giving The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist a full five-star rating because I believe he has met that criteria. His writing is economical, elegant, accessible, and authoritative. His stance is earnest and authentic. His examples are relevant and essential. And his topic is absolutely vital to the proper construction of our 21st century economy.
This is a book I will have to buy in bulk, and to give to the many people I meet in my daily work who need the conceptual reboot that it provides. I recommend it to anyone who needs or produces creative work in these early days of the 21st century, whether in the public, private, or academic sectors.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 11
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