Craft and Wisdom

Why does adding people to a late project make it later? Why do organizations build systems that mirror their communication structures? Why do metrics become targets and stop measuring what matters?

The answers are documented-if you know where to look.

99 principles. Zero hand-waving. Each follows the same rigorous format: a clear explanation, warning signs that reveal violations, and markers that confirm correct application. No "it depends" without explaining why.

Five chapters cover:

• Team practices-code review, pair programming, blameless postmortems, and what distinguishes high-performing teams
• 31 empirical laws-Conway, Brooks, Goodhart, Parkinson, Hofstadter, Gall, and the patterns that govern projects whether you acknowledge them or not
• Anti-patterns and code smells-God Object, Big Ball of Mud, Feature Envy, Lava Flow, and 19 more warning signs to catch early
• Code quality and maintenance-technical debt as a strategic tool, refactoring discipline, and when complexity is justified
• Planning and product strategy-MVP, build-vs-buy, last responsible moment, and decisions that compound over time

For engineers navigating organizational complexity, technical leads making judgment calls, and anyone who suspects the hard problems are not technical.

Craft and Wisdom is Book 6 of the Software Development Principles series. Language-agnostic. Framework-independent. Built to last.

Experience takes years. Understanding the patterns does not have to.