Old Books that Every Architect Should Read
Reading technical books is finally on the upswing again, and so are book lists. I have published my own architect bookshelf some three years ago. Looking back at that shelf I notice that some books are more than 20 years old with others like Design Patterns steadily inching up to the 30-year-mark. In a software world where we believe that we invented everything just last year (for many buzzwords that might be ture), I decided to make a list of old^H^H^Hclassic books that I believe every architect should read.
The oldest book that is commonly listed in the context of architecture (IT or otherwise) is Vitruvius’ De architectura, published as Ten Books on Architecture. The works date back to about 20-30 BC and gives insight into the qualities of a good architect as well as many of the Roman architectural achievements. I admit that only read a small portion of my copy, so I can’t really pronounce it required reading. I mention it mainly for your personal enjoyment / enrichment and to casually name-drop it in conversations, as I just did.
Challenges on software projects are nothing new. Originally published almost half a century ago (a year before the launch of the VW Golf, to not leave this post void of car references), this classic by Fred Brooks is the source of the famous insight that “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later”. Even the Anniversary Edition is now 30 years old, so you have little excuse for not having read it.
