Domain-Driven Design
by Eric Evans · first published 2003
54% recommend41% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Shows how to model complex business domains, stressing a shared domain language and keeping models aligned as concepts shift. Later chapters cover legacy systems; suits developers moving into architecture.
Common criticism: Dry reading, and applying it in practice can be problematic
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
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Perhaps because it's written with examples in java but I often feel like no one in the rails community has ever read Eric Evan's Domain Driven Design[1]. It's far and away the best material I've ever seen on how to organise large code bases. It covers pretty much every suggestion that I've seen from the rails community. Sometimes the rails community…
on “Rails – The Missing Parts” ↗The Java example you've provided is known as Domain Modeling, it's well described (and honestly greatly expanded on) in Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans. It's applied heavily in the enterprise world simply because it's so powerful. In general as the domain logic becomes more complex the benefits of doing this increase. Actually, not encountering…
on “Parse, Don’t Validate” ↗* Douglas Hofstadter - Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid * Fred Brooks - Design Of Design * Fred Brooks - The Mythical Man month * Eric J. Evans - Domain Driven Design * Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software * Kent Beck - Extreme Programming Explained * Kent Beck - Planning Extreme Programming * Michael C. Feathers - Working Effectively…
on “Ask HN: What books had the greatest effect on how you structure your code?” ↗It turns out rule 5 (Data dominates. If you've chosen the right data structures and organized things well, the algorithms will almost always be self-evident) is both true but also hard. Eric Evans' Domain Driven Design is a good book on the topic.
on “Rob Pike's Rules of Programming (1989)” ↗The Pragmatic Programmer: http://pragprog.com/titles/tpp/the-pragmatic-programmer Code Complete: http://cc2e.com/ Introduction to Algorithms (google that one, it's hard to find a good link) Domain Driven Design: http://domaindrivendesign.org/books/evans_2003 Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software The term "web development" doesn't mean much. There is web design. There is application…
on “The Hacker's Path” ↗…conventions (or lack of them). Also consider: reading up on architecture, testing, refactoring and code quality. If nothing else, these will help you get your next, better job. Off the top of my head, try "Domain Driven Design" by Eric Evans, "Growing object-oriented software guided by tests", "Refactoring" By Martin Fowler, and on the last topic "Clean code" by Robert Martin and "Code Complete" by Steve McConnell Big ball…
on “I'm doing 90% maintenance and 10% development, is this normal?” ↗…there's no logic checks across aggregates --- if there are, you won't have immediate consistency, and you have to be ready for compensating events. I recommend two books, that cover event sourcing from a Domain Driven Design perspective. The consequences are similar. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Domain-driven-Design-Tackling-Compl... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Implementing-Domain-Driven-Design-V... ----------------- If that…
on “Scaling Blockchains with Apache Kafka” ↗Refactoring by Martin Fowler and Kent Beck. Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler. Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans. Growing Object-Oriented Software, guided by tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce.
on “Ask HN: What are the most fundamental books on computer science?” ↗Huh. Mine would be: * The Mythical Man-Month, Brooks * Rapid Development, McConnell * Extreme Programming Explained, Beck, et al * Test-Driven Development by Example, Beck * Domain-Driven Design, Evans And something that wasn't a book but made a huge impact was Eric Ries's blog, Startup Lessons Learned, circa 2009. He correctly spotted that things like Extreme Programming are generic software…
on “Books that changed my career as a software engineer” ↗I like the book Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans. Also, pure functional programming and immutability have greatly influenced my design even in languages other than Haskell (my main language is Python). Eric Evans also stresses the importance…
on “Ask HN: How did you learn good program design?” ↗Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans
on “Ask HN: Best books on managing software complexity?” ↗…of Existing Code * Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship * Code Complete: A Practical Handbook of Software Construction And some others: * Working Effectively with Legacy Code * Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
on “Ask HN: Suggested software /design/ books?” ↗I recommend Domain Driven Design by Eric Evans. There is an argument that OO is bad because it's so hard to do well. I have yet to be convinced that the same doesn't apply to Functional Programming.
on “My brain can't handle OOP anymore” ↗…patterns, read Gabriel's "Patterns of Software" -- http://dreamsongs.net/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf -- for a more nuanced view than most courses and articles. If you're into OO design, read Eric Evans's "Domain-Driven Design," and take heed when he emphasizes the importance of domain language and concepts. Learn how to use some structured to-do system efficiently. Don't try to juggle dozens of random things in your memory.…
on “What should a self-taught programmer study?” ↗…topic. But, depending on where your interests lie, these might be interesting for you: "Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas That Drive Today's Computers" - John MacCormick "Domain Driven Design" - Eric Evans "Artificial Intelligence: The Basics" - Kevin Warwick ...and on the Project management / Executive side: "Agile Project Management with Scrum" - Ken Schwaber "Reality Check" - Guy Kawasaki…
on “Ask HN: What good books have you read to learn more in tech?” ↗