Chapter 15-16

     Brooks begins chapter 15 by talking about how design has become far more complex and less hands on compared to original designers like Edison and Ford. He continues to talk about the effects of this "divorce of design." Next Brooks talks about the remedies to these arising problems.  These remedies are, "Use-scenario experience, Close interaction with users via incremental development and iterative delivery, concurrent engineering, and education of designers." All of these walk through the necessary steps of what designers need to do.

     Chapter 16 talks about design's trajectories and rationales. Brooks begins talking about linearizing the Web of knowledge, or understanding the different paths of a typical design. Then Brooks talks about design trees that represent trajectories.  He then shows a few examples of design trees. Then he goes more in-depth about the design process being more than just fulfilling requirements. Brooks breaks down all the different options that arise during a design and explains the important of alternative paths. The he bring up the difference between trees of design versus trees of decisions. He continues on talking about the different types of design. Then he mentions some alternative tools commonly used in design processes. Then he talks about the importance and growing use of Compendium. Nearing the end Brooks mentions some tantalizing tools.  In conclusion, Brooks explains the importance of DRed and RR and BAE systems.

Chapter 13-14

   Brooks starts the chapter talking about the roles of exemplars.  He mentions many designs are not all-new but rather based around old designs and made better. The next page talks about computer designers and how professionals have a wider range of exemplars than amateur designers. In order to study rationales of exemplars, one must study the technical papers and books about products, not just the basic manual.  Then Brooks talks about the evolution from first-gen computers to third-gen computers.  Then came virtual memory, the minicomputer, and the microcomputer. Brooks next writes about how authors can improve exemplars and write about them.  This practice takes careful criticism and in depth analysis.  Then Brooks talks about how designers must not be lazy but must have pride and originality in order to really create new exemplars.

     Brooks begins chapter 14 by talking about mistakes and how professional mistakes have much dire consequences than amateur mistakes, i.e. bridge collapses. The he cites JCL as the worst computer language ever created and used by IBM's operating systems.  He goes further into what JCL is and how its flawed.  He comments on the flawed complier and necessary information to knowJCL is vast and no one really knows how to use it. He mentions there are too few verbs, almost no branching, no iteration, and no clean subroutines. Brooks then talks about how JCL became into existence and why its flaws were overlooked. Finally he concludes with the lessons learned: Study failure more closely that success, don't be overconfident with success, and always consider assumptions and environments of designs.

Chapter 12

 Brooks opens the chapter talking about esthetics and how people have been decorating things for centuries.  Then he related this topic to programming and mathematics.  The word parsimony and structural clarity arise in Brooks discussion about programming elegance.  Brooks continues discussing orthogonality and propriety issues in computer architecture.  He hits on the importance of structural clarity as well.  Then he moves onto styles of design. In his style section, he hit many topics like the importance of details, minimization of mental effort, clarity, and consistency. Then Brooks talks about the properties of style, i.e. specification, evolution, and consistency. He continues with some guidelines about how to achieve good style. These guidelines are make conscious judgements, practice, practice, practice, revise, and choose designers carefully.

Chapter 11

    Brooks starts chapter 11 by talking about constraints challenge the designer.  Then he talks about the different types of constraints and describes each one: Real, Obsolete, Intentional artificial, and constraints misperceived as real.  Obsolete constraints come from using old technology. Misperceived constraints are constraints that are subtle and hard to see. Brooks further explains these types of constraints as false constraints.  Then he goes on to talk about general-purpose vs special-purpose constraints. An example is designing a 100 sq-ft house versus designing a 1000 sq-ft house for a family with 2 children in NC facing north.  He then talks more about these general-purpose vs special-purpose computer architecture. Brooks finishes talking about software and spatial design.

Chapter 10

In this chapter, the author discusses the concept of budget. Although many people associate recourses or budgeting with monetary amounts, it is often not the case. The author lists a bunch of items that are considered critical resources, but are not any sort of currency, such as bandwidth or time. He then relates the concept to his /360 project again. He believes this type of thought is productive and healthy for a design team. Not only is it healthy and product, but it can save a lot of unnecessary work later.

Chapter 9

Chapter 9 describes the importance of knowing your user. Brooks explains that "experienced designers often      begin by writing down exactly what they know about the user...". He explains the importance of this concept even though few designers actually follow through with detailed descriptions of their product's demographic. Brooks describes how knowing your consumer can be conflicting when dealing with a team. One part of a group/team could have a completely different idea of what the consumer really wants/needs in the final product, thus making it hard to successfully complete a design. Brooks finishes this chapter by saying that if you don't know all of the facts about your design, when it comes to dealing with the consumer, then the best option is to guess. He states that guesses should be explicit rather than vague. Brooks argues that explicit guesses can be questioned and tweaked easier than vague ones.

Chapter 8

In Chapter 8 Brooks describes two differences between rationalism and empiricism. He states that rationalist believe that man is sound and that man can make a flawless design. Empiricist, in contrast, think that humankind is flawed and that all designs by humans are inherently flawed as well. Brooks talks about how software design is very empiricist, they prototype often and test the results. Brooks claims to be a empiricist through experience. He states that often he would run into code problems that rooted from a human error. Contrary to the empiricist ideology that it is possible for humans, although rare, to make perfect code. He explains a story of how him and a partner were able to place code into a Harvard Mark IV, and their code worked perfectly the first time. He explains that they desk-tested the code using simulated execution before they implemented the code. He then talks about how groups, because of the empiricist ideology, are formed to perform correctness testing in operating system kernels. Even though a flawed humans are performing these task, Brooks believes this procedure is a way to correct the flaws of humanity when it comes to design. Brooks believes that, unlike software design, design of physical  objects tend to be harder to perform correctness testing. He states some ways of how designer test the correctness of their products, but Brooks demonstrates some of its flaws (including monetary issues).

Design Ch. 7

In chapter 7 Brooks covers  telecommunication.  He first covers the pros. Most of the pros are pretty straightforward, such as specialization, cost, and the ability to work with people in drastically different time zones. The author then goes into possible cons of telecommunication.  The cons seem to be a little more subtle than the pros. The author believes that lack of face-to-face time will cause problems down the road of design, even if the problems aren’t immediately obvious. He then goes into example about the IBM System /360 Project he worked on. In order to have a successful project, one must find a balance between using high tech and low tech methods on communication. The high tech can be used for the speedy transfer of information, while the low tech is used for establishing personal relationships. The author published a book with a coauthor via mail, but he believes this was only possible because he spent 7 years of face-to-face time with the coauthor prior to the project. The author finished by talking about the different communication options.

Design Ch. 6

In Chapter 6, Brooks talks about collaboration. Design was originally done by individuals, but today, it is done by groups of teams that may not even live in the same country. This shift was driven by two forces: the advance in telecommunications, and the need to design and sell products quickly. There are a few drawbacks to collaboration, such as cost, learning, communication and control. It is more expensive to partition a project, rather then have it be designed in a single piece. The more people that work on the project, the more people that need to be taught the necessary information to successfully design it. Communication can also be difficult, and this difficulty can lead to errors in scope or design. Control can also be difficult to designate. If a designer is not careful, a change he or she makes can be detrimental to another designer.

New Tech

New Australian turbine design
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/global-observer/australian-farmer-revolutionizes-water-turbine-technology/3720
Robot Hornot Drones
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/robot-hornets-become-british-armys-latest-weapon/12028?tag=search-river
Wash and Dry Combo
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/james-dyson-invents-sink-that-washes-and-dries-your-hands/12130?tag=search-river