--- product_id: 342311609 title: "A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition" price: "£25.38" currency: GBP in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/342311609-a-philosophy-of-software-design-2nd-edition store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition **Price:** £25.38 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition - **How much does it cost?** £25.38 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/342311609-a-philosophy-of-software-design-2nd-edition) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description This book addresses the topic of software design: how to decompose complex software systems into modules (such as classes and methods) that can be implemented relatively independently. The book first introduces the fundamental problem in software design, which is managing complexity. It then discusses philosophical issues about how to approach the software design process and it presents a collection of design principles to apply during software design. The book also introduces a set of red flags that identify design problems. You can apply the ideas in this book to minimize the complexity of large software systems, so that you can write software more quickly and cheaply. Review: An excellent book about software design principles, a must read for all software engineers - I discovered this work by first watching John present his material at a Google Talk series on software design. When he said he had tried for years to find a book that encapsulated key software design principles and failed, I really resonated with his approach. I have been looking for ages for a standard text to refer to my mentees, and this book really encapsulates all the key design principles I have spent years fine tuning myself. I wish I had had this book when I was starting out! I particularly like John's writing style, it is as clear and concise as the software design principles he advocates. The Book is a print on demand book with a simple but effective design, printed on quality paper. I read it from end to end in a week of lunchtimes, because each chapter focuses on one design principle and is only a few pages long, and while there are small examples for everything, it is not over cluttered with intricate detail. It is just the right level for a beginner or an expert to benefit from alike. The examples are well chosen from a knowledge-base of hundreds of student and industrial projects that John has direct involvement with, and every example clearly supports the principle being presented. I will be recommending this book to everyone that I mentor and support, and I recommend that you buy it too. If you are a beginner, it will give you much to think about and practice as you grow into your career. If you have been developing software for a few years, it will make you re think some of the things you do and adjust your style for the better. If you are experienced, it will encapsulate succinctly all the principles you have spent years perfecting, and give you an easy way to pass on these principles to those around you that you mentor. Review: Finally a clean code book that justifies itself. - A book that falls in the same category as "clean code", except it gives better advice with actual justifications. Unlike "clean code", this book actually tells you why a certain way is better rather than just stating it as some biblical truth. It also presents overarching theory that all the concepts sit on and with which you can take to make actually day to day decisions that aren't based on hard rules. The main concept presented is the idea of complexity, reducing the complexity that is exposed to developers by abstracting it away into parts that can be used as a black box and is seen by few. The book is good for both junior and senior engineers and will make you rethink how you and your team work, in particular constantly improving the code base rather than just looking to address tech debt at some future point in time. At the very least you will come out with a different opinion on some topics, refreshed some good practices, and learn good terminology to describe difficult concepts. People who complain that this book encourages long functions and classes really miss the point. The point is that functions and classes should do one thing in isolation. That's the goal, not to make it short. A lot of the time functions are shorter as a result of following that objective, but you are optimizing for things doing one thing not shortness within itself. Separating functions out into blocks that do nott stand alone as independent units just makes things harder to understand and read as you have to jump about in the file, or into other files. If you look at some of the before and after examples that do this in clean code, they are actually worse a lot of the time after. If you have this opinion, when you read this book be open to changing your mind. If your argument is "functions should be 20 lines long at most because that's what I read in clean code and anything else is wrong" you are really limiting yourself and hurting the people who read your code. It was also very refreshing to finally hear a counter argument to the dogmatic application of TDD. To conclude, if you would like to learn how to write clean code with actual generalisable theory over using hard rules such as never comment, a function should be x lines long, and classes should be y lines long, then this is the book for you. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | 4,054 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 2 in Software Design & Development 2 in Computing & Internet for Professionals 9 in Computing & Internet Programming | | Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,649 Reviews | ## Images ![A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/711Qnv05eTL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An excellent book about software design principles, a must read for all software engineers *by W***Y on 20 December 2020* I discovered this work by first watching John present his material at a Google Talk series on software design. When he said he had tried for years to find a book that encapsulated key software design principles and failed, I really resonated with his approach. I have been looking for ages for a standard text to refer to my mentees, and this book really encapsulates all the key design principles I have spent years fine tuning myself. I wish I had had this book when I was starting out! I particularly like John's writing style, it is as clear and concise as the software design principles he advocates. The Book is a print on demand book with a simple but effective design, printed on quality paper. I read it from end to end in a week of lunchtimes, because each chapter focuses on one design principle and is only a few pages long, and while there are small examples for everything, it is not over cluttered with intricate detail. It is just the right level for a beginner or an expert to benefit from alike. The examples are well chosen from a knowledge-base of hundreds of student and industrial projects that John has direct involvement with, and every example clearly supports the principle being presented. I will be recommending this book to everyone that I mentor and support, and I recommend that you buy it too. If you are a beginner, it will give you much to think about and practice as you grow into your career. If you have been developing software for a few years, it will make you re think some of the things you do and adjust your style for the better. If you are experienced, it will encapsulate succinctly all the principles you have spent years perfecting, and give you an easy way to pass on these principles to those around you that you mentor. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Finally a clean code book that justifies itself. *by F***S on 8 June 2021* A book that falls in the same category as "clean code", except it gives better advice with actual justifications. Unlike "clean code", this book actually tells you why a certain way is better rather than just stating it as some biblical truth. It also presents overarching theory that all the concepts sit on and with which you can take to make actually day to day decisions that aren't based on hard rules. The main concept presented is the idea of complexity, reducing the complexity that is exposed to developers by abstracting it away into parts that can be used as a black box and is seen by few. The book is good for both junior and senior engineers and will make you rethink how you and your team work, in particular constantly improving the code base rather than just looking to address tech debt at some future point in time. At the very least you will come out with a different opinion on some topics, refreshed some good practices, and learn good terminology to describe difficult concepts. People who complain that this book encourages long functions and classes really miss the point. The point is that functions and classes should do one thing in isolation. That's the goal, not to make it short. A lot of the time functions are shorter as a result of following that objective, but you are optimizing for things doing one thing not shortness within itself. Separating functions out into blocks that do nott stand alone as independent units just makes things harder to understand and read as you have to jump about in the file, or into other files. If you look at some of the before and after examples that do this in clean code, they are actually worse a lot of the time after. If you have this opinion, when you read this book be open to changing your mind. If your argument is "functions should be 20 lines long at most because that's what I read in clean code and anything else is wrong" you are really limiting yourself and hurting the people who read your code. It was also very refreshing to finally hear a counter argument to the dogmatic application of TDD. To conclude, if you would like to learn how to write clean code with actual generalisable theory over using hard rules such as never comment, a function should be x lines long, and classes should be y lines long, then this is the book for you. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Not ground breaking , but definitely worth a read *by R***H on 31 December 2022* The book covers some good engineering practises for software design. It is refreshing to see that many views I have held for years is shared by the author as well. for e.g.: I always thought Java IO libraries were bit over engineered and could have been made simpler, glad to see author also shares the same view. Views on design patterns overuse or on TDD , I fully agree. I find it hard to go with the suggestion of designing general solution all the time. Though I agree with the overall concept, designing a generic solution first, will put too much burden on the engineer (who need not be domain expert), as result will end up with wrong or abstraction (most of the time!). ## Frequently Bought Together - A Philosophy of Software Design, 2nd Edition - The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey To Mastery, 20th Anniversary Edition (2nd Edition) - Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/342311609-a-philosophy-of-software-design-2nd-edition](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/342311609-a-philosophy-of-software-design-2nd-edition) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-05-21*