Righting Software

Always on my desktop
The only book I keep more or less permanently on my desktop. Here’s why.Effective Decision-Making Tool————————————It has become my trusted reference source for navigating a decision tree with too many branches. This tree I found out stands behind any software system, whether we like to acknowledge it or not.The book has saved me many lost hours spent spiraling down rabbit holes, exploring a never-ending list of “viable” options, doubting my decisions (and biases), and only moving ahead under the threat of a deadline. Even then, often, by making a “coin toss” decision and hoping for the best.In short, it keeps me away from the infamous analysis paralysis, through proven and objective techniques for decision making.The answer is in there. Reread it.————————————–Like many of Juval’s other works, the book itself comprises of many layers. Parts that seem as fluff at first pass, surfaces as essential, and meaningful on subsequent reads.Even after fully embracing The Method and thought I got a good grasp on it, I often stumbled on roadblocks, when applying in the real world. At that point, I would pick up the book and end up, most of the time, finding the answer hidden behind a single word or sentence that I didn’t pay much attention to before.Teaches Critical Thinking and Antifragility————————————————I was apprehensive during my first engagement with Juval’s teachings as they go against the prevailing trend in the industry and more significantly against my own beliefs that guided my professional career until then. But once I managed to put my ego aside and welcomed divergent ideas, I could see the flaws in many of my ways and fragile aspects of my previous work. It trained me on being more critical towards my own decisions and provided the integrity required to back the ones that remain standing.On the con-side——————-Due to the heavy loading with crucial information, finding what you need can sometimes be a pain. That’s why I ended up having to get both the printed and later the Kindle edition (the latter allowing me to do a quick search for specific terms).Additionally, once you’ve been exposed to The Method through one of the masterclasses Juval teaches, the book’s value gets a considerable boost. However, it may have the opposite effect if this is your first contact with these concepts, thus not getting the full benefit of Righting Software.

Eye-opening Book on Software Architecture
I’ve spent my entire career in software development and have been architecting solutions now for a couple decades. I can definitely say that many of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned along the way have been the hard way: by make spectacular mistakes that have resulted in applications that began to show their limits as the time came for things that are increasingly common, now that we are working on web/cloud environments, issues like scalability and security that can rise to the forefront almost immediately. Gone are the days of desktop computing where the worst you typically had to deal with were dll mismatches (and I don’t miss those days!).This book was recommended to me by a friend I respect and, I have to say, it was like a thunderbolt.Since I have made many of the same mistakes the author outlines I could instantly see his points – and thus his solutions for avoiding them using volatility-based decomposition. They say memories based on strong emotions are those that stick with you. I’m here to confess to you that I have quite a few memories that I’ll never forget from architecture decisions that later came to rear their ugly heads.If you’re like me and your best growth experiences seem to be predicated by spectacular failures I highly recommend you pick up this book, read it thoroughly, and keep it close by for reference. Better: if you’re new to software architecture, pick up this book now and you’ll be able to avoid the pain and humiliation I’ve had to suffer by learning how to design correctly the first time!

Nem comecei a ler direito, e percebi que a qualidade das páginas do livro são horríveis. Um papel de baixíssima qualidade que amassa ao folhear. Fiquei decepcionado

this book and its cover texts starts with self-praise of the highest level. while reading, I found it hard to find ground for this praise – unless you are a total fool at programming you should know how to avoid some or most of the described problems. someone with that much praise should deliver more than excel graphs – and I finally got the impression that the overall content could have been subsumed into but a fex chapters, or a much shorter text even.