John Ousterhout Reflects on "A Philosophy of Software Design"
About this episode
In this special episode of Book Overflow, Dr. John Ousterhout joins Carter and Nathan to discuss his book "A Philosophy of Software Design." He reflects on why he wrote the book, how he teaches the principles in it to his Stanford students, and what we can learn from our mistakes.
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00:00 Intro
01:18 Motivation for writing this book
06:17 Why No TAs for Stanford Class
08:55 Thoughts on TDD
14:24 Design it Twice
20:30 Most Surprising Feedback
31:46 Taking suggestions with a grain of salt
33:20 Curiosity and Humility
36:13 Misunderstandings from the book
39:37 Strong opinions, humility, and fear of being wrong
44:35 Unconventional Career Paths
50:13 What are you reading?
51:22 Thoughts on Clean Code
53:50 Advice for new software engineers
58:00 Closing Thoughts
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