Ask HN: What are some good books about non-code elements of software?

8 points by idolaspecus 5 years ago | 11 comments

I'm thinking of a book like Working Effectively With Legacy Code but that deals more with things like documentation, specification, code review, etc. I'd like the book to help with the following scenario: given some completely "naked" codebase, what things (whether they're specs, docs, comments, whatever) need to be added to the codebase before you'd consider it "high-quality"?

mssundaram 5 years ago |

"The Pragmatic Programmer" may be useful to you. It's dated but still relevant, and it was recently revised.

idolaspecus 5 years ago | |

This is one of those books I’ve always meant to read but never have. I guess the time is now. Thanks for the suggestion.

mssundaram 5 years ago | | |

There is an Audible version as well

ElectricMind 5 years ago |

I suggest "Making better software" documentary on Amazon Prime by Joel Spolsky. Also you can read his blog on [0]

Huge respect for him. Kind of dream manager you want :)

[0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/

macando 5 years ago |

"Clean Architecture" by Robert C. Martin.

100011_100001 5 years ago | |

I would add Clean Code. It's Java centric but a lot of the ideas can be used in any language, even though it can probably all be condensed to "everything should do a single thing and no more"

macando 5 years ago | | |

Yeah, single responsibility principle is the key takeaway from that book. Clean Code is a must for all programmers and I can recommend it as a prequel to CA. It's written by the same author after all.

I have a feeling the OP is looking for a book about software development in a broad sense.

yuppie_scum 5 years ago |

Honestly, the Google SRE book as well.

sloaken 5 years ago | |

Based on your entry, I looked it up and found this page with 3 (FREE) books: https://sre.google/books/

100011_100001 5 years ago | | |

Not the person that you replied to, but he probably means the book on the right. It's a good recommendation especially if you are trying to understand how and why DevOps / SRE works and why it's important.

yuppie_scum 5 years ago |

The Phoenix Project