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Ask HN: What are some good books about non-code elements of software?

8 points by idolaspecus ↗ HN
I'm thinking of a book like Working Effectively With Legacy Code but that deals more with things like documentation, specification, code review, etc. I'd like the book to help with the following scenario: given some completely "naked" codebase, what things (whether they're specs, docs, comments, whatever) need to be added to the codebase before you'd consider it "high-quality"?

11 comments

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mssundaram
"The Pragmatic Programmer" may be useful to you. It's dated but still relevant, and it was recently revised.
idolaspecus
This is one of those books I’ve always meant to read but never have. I guess the time is now. Thanks for the suggestion.
yuppie_scum
Honestly, the Google SRE book as well.
sloaken
Based on your entry, I looked it up and found this page with 3 (FREE) books: https://sre.google/books/
100011_100001
Not the person that you replied to, but he probably means the book on the right. It's a good recommendation especially if you are trying to understand how and why DevOps / SRE works and why it's important.
macando
"Clean Architecture" by Robert C. Martin.
100011_100001
I would add Clean Code. It's Java centric but a lot of the ideas can be used in any language, even though it can probably all be condensed to "everything should do a single thing and no more"
macando
Yeah, single responsibility principle is the key takeaway from that book. Clean Code is a must for all programmers and I can recommend it as a prequel to CA. It's written by the same author after all.

I have a feeling the OP is looking for a book about software development in a broad sense.

ElectricMind
I suggest "Making better software" documentary on Amazon Prime by Joel Spolsky. Also you can read his blog on [0]

Huge respect for him. Kind of dream manager you want :)

[0] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/