Design of Design, The: Essays from a Computer Scientist, 1st edition

Published by Addison-Wesley Professional (March 22, 2010) © 2010

  • Frederick P. Brooks University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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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 - and what doesn't? In The Design of Design, the legendary Fred Brooks takes on these questions - and does for design what his classic best-seller The Mythical Man-Month did for project management. In a series of essays reminiscent of the approach he took in The Mythical Man-Month, Brooks illuminates hidden issues that designers face in every discipline, and uncovers processes and patterns most likely to lead to excellence. In his first major book in more than three decades, Brooks addresses the design process as it has evolved today -- including new issues and opportunities that accompany team-based and distributed design of complex systems. Drawing on the experiences and intuitions of dozens of exceptional designers, Brooks argues convincingly that better outcomes now require bolder design decisions. Brooks shares new important insights about constraints, budgets, design empiricism, aesthetics and style, tools, and more - including two powerful essays on what makes designers great, and where great designers come from. The book concludes with six case study "trips" through design spaces ranging from beach houses to IBM's Operating System/360 - the project that made Brooks famous some four decades ago.

Preface ix

 

Part I: Models of Designing 1

Chapter 1: The Design Question 3

Chapter 2: How Engineers Think of Design–The Rational Model 13

Chapter 3: What’s Wrong with This Model? 21

Chapter 4: Requirements, Sin, and Contracts 39

Chapter 5: What Are Better Design Process Models? 51

 

Part II: Collaboration and Telecollaboration 61

Chapter 6: Collaboration in Design 63

Chapter 7: Telecollaboration 89

 

Part III: Design Perspectives 103

Chapter 8: Rationalism versus Empiricism in Design 105

Chapter 9: User Models–Better Wrong than Vague 113

Chapter 10: Inches, Ounces, Bits, Dollars–The Budgeted Resource 119

Chapter 11: Constraints Are Friends 127

Chapter 12: Esthetics and Style in Technical Design 139

Chapter 13: Exemplars in Design 153

Chapter 14: How Expert Designers Go Wrong 167

Chapter 15: The Divorce of Design 175

Chapter 16: Representing Designs’ Trajectories and Rationales 185

 

Part IV: A Computer Scientist’s Dream System for Designing Houses 201

Chapter 17: A Computer Scientist’s Dream System for Designing Houses–Mind to Machine 203

Chapter 18: A Computer Scientist’s Dream System for Designing Houses–Machine to Mind 219

 

Part V: Great Designers 229

Chapter 19: Great Designs Come from Great Designers 231

Chapter 20: Where Do Great Designers Come From? 243

 

Part VI: Trips through Design Spaces: Case Studies 257

Chapter 21: Case Study: Beach House “View/360” 259

Chapter 22: Case Study: House Wing Addition 279

Chapter 23: Case Study: Kitchen Remodeling 297

Chapter 24: Case Study: System/360 Architecture 313

Chapter 25: Case Study: IBM Operating System/360 331

Chapter 26: Case Study: Book Design of Computer Architecture: Concepts and Evolution 347

Chapter 27: Case Study: A Joint Computer Center Organization: Triangle Universities Computation Center 355

Chapter 28: Recommended Reading 367

 

Acknowledgments 371

Bibliography 375

People Index 393

Subject Index 401

 

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