When I was a student, my free time was spent in dusty corners of university libraries digging up old, forgotten books. I found many gems this way (including the venerable TAOCP. I only realized how famous it is after reading the Wikipedia page).
Although he seems to be most famous for the "Pattern Language" book, my introduction to his work was during my visit to the university's architecture library, from a slim volume entitled "Notes on the synthesis of form". It really highlights the magnitude of the task facing the modern architect/designer/developer. The first half of the book details how for most of history, design has not been a conscious process but rather an emergent property arising through a selection process (basically evolution). The alternative, discussed in the second half of the book, is for a human to sit down and think through the requirements and design almost de novo - this is extremely challenging due to the number of interacting variables.
Reading this book gave me a much better appreciation and respect for evolved techniques (eg. traditional methods of building, farming, etc; even social norms and traditions), and gave me valuable thoughts on when an evolutionary approach would work better vs a design approach (similar to Linux's explicit evolution vs OpenBSD's considered design).
Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built is another good book about designing for evolution. The book was also adapted into a 1997 BBC TV series (available Stewart Brand's YouTube channel).
When I was a student, my free time was spent in dusty corners of university libraries digging up old, forgotten books. I found many gems this way (including the venerable TAOCP. I only realized how famous it is after reading the Wikipedia page).
Although he seems to be most famous for the "Pattern Language" book, my introduction to his work was during my visit to the university's architecture library, from a slim volume entitled "Notes on the synthesis of form". It really highlights the magnitude of the task facing the modern architect/designer/developer. The first half of the book details how for most of history, design has not been a conscious process but rather an emergent property arising through a selection process (basically evolution). The alternative, discussed in the second half of the book, is for a human to sit down and think through the requirements and design almost de novo - this is extremely challenging due to the number of interacting variables.
Reading this book gave me a much better appreciation and respect for evolved techniques (eg. traditional methods of building, farming, etc; even social norms and traditions), and gave me valuable thoughts on when an evolutionary approach would work better vs a design approach (similar to Linux's explicit evolution vs OpenBSD's considered design).