Lessons that walk through how applications have been designed and the thought processes involved?

Question

I'm a developer with about 3 years experience. I'm fairly proficient in a couple of programming languages, have built a few small to medium sized apps and have read books on design patterns etc.

For someone in my position wanting to learn a lot more about how to build programs well and understand all the design decisions involved, I can picture the perfect learning material but I don't know where to find it or if it exists?

I'd love screencasts or even written examples that just run through many actual examples of different types of applications and explain what each part does and why it was done that way. Really discuss the considerations and thought processes involved and the trade-offs made.

This would add a lot more value in my opinion than simply reading through open source project code yourself or reading about abstract design patterns in books.

Does anyone know of any material like this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

How about O'Reilly's Beautiful Code?

How do the experts solve difficult problems in software development? In this unique and insightful book, leading computer scientists offer case studies that reveal how they found unusual, carefully designed solutions to high-profile projects. You will be able to look over the shoulder of major coding and design experts to see problems through their eyes. This is not simply another design patterns book, or another software engineering treatise on the right and wrong way to do things. The authors think aloud as they work through their project's architecture, the tradeoffs made in its construction, and when it was important to break rules.

This book contains 33 chapters contributed by Brian Kernighan, Karl Fogel, Jon Bentley, Tim Bray, Elliotte Rusty Harold, Michael Feathers, Alberto Savoia, Charles Petzold, Douglas Crockford, Henry S. Warren, Jr., Ashish Gulhati, Lincoln Stein, Jim Kent, Jack Dongarra and Piotr Luszczek, Adam Kolawa, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Diomidis Spinellis, Andrew Kuchling, Travis E. Oliphant, Ronald Mak, Rogerio Atem de Carvalho and Rafael Monnerat, Bryan Cantrill, Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat, Simon Peyton Jones, Kent Dybvig, William Otte and Douglas C. Schmidt, Andrew Patzer, Andreas Zeller, Yukihiro Matsumoto, Arun Mehta, TV Raman, Laura Wingerd and Christopher Seiwald, and Brian Hayes. "Beautiful Code" is an opportunity for master coders to tell their story. All author royalties will be donated to Amnesty International.