Examples of “comment on design” book?

Question

We all know the design patterns books, but patterns are reusable elements, not full fledged designs. I would like to see real-case designs, presented with a commentary. At the moment, I can appreciate the (IMHO) very pleasant design of Qt, for example, but I don't have Qt designers commenting on each design choice and strategy. Are there good books commenting designs?

Answer 1

Have a look at Beautiful Code http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596510046, and others in the series like Beautiful Architecture & Beautiful Data. I haven't read myself, but is on my list.

Answer 2

Consider Code Review SE

While it's not exactly what you're looking for right now, it may offer some guidance into alternative ways of implementing the desired behaviour with justifications in the answers. In general it tends to address questions of the type "Is this a good way to [insert programming objective]?".

If you wanted to target a higher level of abstraction, you might be able to get a design review question through.

Answer 3

Perhaps this book is what you're looking for:

Holub on Patterns

Most programmers learn by looking at computer programs. This book teaches you design patterns in exactly this way: by looking at computer programs and analyzing them in terms of the patterns that they use. Consequently, you learn how the patterns actually occur in the real world, and how to apply the patterns to solve real problems. This book also looks at the broader context of OO (Object-Oriented) design and how the patterns solve commonplace OO design problems. It covers many of the principles of OO design - principles not covered by most books on Java - and shows you how to apply these principles to make your code easier to maintain and debug.

The existing books on design patterns take a "catalog" approach, where they show the individual design patterns in isolation. This approach is fundamentally flawed because you can’t see how the design patterns actually function in the real world. The patterns in real programs interact in complex ways, working in concert to solve many problems simultaneously. By seeing the patterns actually applied in a realistic way, you can really understand how to use them in your own code.

Answer 4

If you want commentary on the C++ language and library designs, hunt around and find a copy of The Annotated C++ Reference Manual (Ellis & Stroustrup). It's an older version of the C++ standard annotated with a lot of 'how it got that way'. It's actually how I learned C++, because for me understanding the way he intended objects to be made was key to understanding what was really going on.