<story><title>Software Architecture Guide</title><url>https://martinfowler.com/architecture/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hyperpallium</author><text>Yes. And Computer Science is not a science, and Software Engineering is not an engineering.&lt;p&gt;Guides to it are more like guides to writing. &lt;i&gt;Strunk and White&lt;/i&gt;, where is your empirical data? What&amp;#x27;s your control? Where are your PDE&amp;#x27;s?&lt;p&gt;Some also have aspects of business productivity books, with well-known common-sense ideas, like &lt;i&gt;In Search of Excellence&lt;/i&gt; (which made up case studies, and a co-author said what&amp;#x27;s the problem?)&lt;p&gt;Even Fred Brooks&amp;#x27; &lt;i&gt;Mythical Man-Month&lt;/i&gt; - informed by his leadership of the massive bet-the-company &amp;quot;360&amp;quot; project at IBM - lacks data. It&amp;#x27;s still great though (in, uh... my subjective opinion, I guess).</text></item><item><author>Ozzie_osman</author><text>Lots of hate in this thread..
People asking for proof: what sort of evidence would convince you? I take these blog posts, apply it to my experience, and take what I think makes sense. Sometimes, an idea will solve an obvious pain I&amp;#x27;ve had. Sometimes, an idea will show me a pain I didn&amp;#x27;t know I have. Sometimes I disagree with the idea because it won&amp;#x27;t work for me. That&amp;#x27;s fine. I&amp;#x27;m still much better off thanks to this literature, and I would be worse off if it all had to be evidence-based.&lt;p&gt;If you think you can write better based on your experience, please go for it. I&amp;#x27;d love to have more literature to read, analyze, and learn from. If you can&amp;#x27;t (pressed for time, etc), and only have time to post in HN comment threads, then at least discuss concretely which parts you disagree with so we can learn from that too (I&amp;#x27;m serious, not being facetious). If you can&amp;#x27;t even do THAT, then sorry, all your valuable experience is way less useful than someone like Martin Fowler, because I&amp;#x27;m not learning anything from you.&lt;p&gt;Having a good understanding of how to architect code is hard. Being able to write about that in a way that&amp;#x27;s useful for others is even harder, and is a skill of its own.&lt;p&gt;So personally, I thank Martin &amp;amp; Co for all their writing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eitland</author><text>&amp;gt; Even Fred Brooks&amp;#x27; Mythical Man-Month - informed by his leadership of the massive bet-the-company &amp;quot;360&amp;quot; project at IBM - lacks data. It&amp;#x27;s still great though (in, uh... my subjective opinion, I guess).&lt;p&gt;I have just read that book.&lt;p&gt;It is the computer book with most tables pr page of any I have seen.&lt;p&gt;How you come to this conclusion is beyond me.</text></comment>
<story><title>Software Architecture Guide</title><url>https://martinfowler.com/architecture/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hyperpallium</author><text>Yes. And Computer Science is not a science, and Software Engineering is not an engineering.&lt;p&gt;Guides to it are more like guides to writing. &lt;i&gt;Strunk and White&lt;/i&gt;, where is your empirical data? What&amp;#x27;s your control? Where are your PDE&amp;#x27;s?&lt;p&gt;Some also have aspects of business productivity books, with well-known common-sense ideas, like &lt;i&gt;In Search of Excellence&lt;/i&gt; (which made up case studies, and a co-author said what&amp;#x27;s the problem?)&lt;p&gt;Even Fred Brooks&amp;#x27; &lt;i&gt;Mythical Man-Month&lt;/i&gt; - informed by his leadership of the massive bet-the-company &amp;quot;360&amp;quot; project at IBM - lacks data. It&amp;#x27;s still great though (in, uh... my subjective opinion, I guess).</text></item><item><author>Ozzie_osman</author><text>Lots of hate in this thread..
People asking for proof: what sort of evidence would convince you? I take these blog posts, apply it to my experience, and take what I think makes sense. Sometimes, an idea will solve an obvious pain I&amp;#x27;ve had. Sometimes, an idea will show me a pain I didn&amp;#x27;t know I have. Sometimes I disagree with the idea because it won&amp;#x27;t work for me. That&amp;#x27;s fine. I&amp;#x27;m still much better off thanks to this literature, and I would be worse off if it all had to be evidence-based.&lt;p&gt;If you think you can write better based on your experience, please go for it. I&amp;#x27;d love to have more literature to read, analyze, and learn from. If you can&amp;#x27;t (pressed for time, etc), and only have time to post in HN comment threads, then at least discuss concretely which parts you disagree with so we can learn from that too (I&amp;#x27;m serious, not being facetious). If you can&amp;#x27;t even do THAT, then sorry, all your valuable experience is way less useful than someone like Martin Fowler, because I&amp;#x27;m not learning anything from you.&lt;p&gt;Having a good understanding of how to architect code is hard. Being able to write about that in a way that&amp;#x27;s useful for others is even harder, and is a skill of its own.&lt;p&gt;So personally, I thank Martin &amp;amp; Co for all their writing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>2_listerine_pls</author><text>Engineering is the application of science. A civil engineer uses laws regarding compression, stress, etc... to build its buildings. If you apply scientifically derived principles when building software then You are a software engineer.</text></comment>