Welcome to "Tidy First?"

In which our author comes to grips with modern book writing

Three threads came together for me to begin working on “Tidy First?”, a book on software design:

• Re-reading Yourdon and Constantine’s Structured Design & realizing that the fundamentals of design had been sitting there all along.

• Reading Ousterhout’s A Philosophy of Software Design & finding it shallow and dogmatic.

• Starting to write my first book in 14 years, realizing that the old relationship between author and reader had broken down, & wanting to experiment with a new relationship as I explained what I understand about software design.

Here’s what I’m going to do. I’ll post some material free. Completed chapters will go to paying customers. The book, when completed, will be distributed in the usual way. This gives you, the aspiring software designer, a menu of tradeoffs:

• Invest money now & get information sooner,

• Invest time now & get less information but soon,

• Wait for the book to come out & get all the information in a refined form for less money.

I hope this meets my need for feedback & incentives to write while also meeting your need to learn, grow, & participate in a community.