Software Design by Example

A tool-based introduction with JavaScript

The best way to learn design in any field is to study examples, and the most approachable examples are ones that readers are already familiar with. These lessons therefore build small versions of tools that programmers use every day to show how experienced software designers think. Along the way, they introduce some fundamental ideas in computer science that many self-taught programmers haven't encountered. We hope these lessons will help you design better software yourself, and that if you know how programming tools work, you'll be more likely to use them and better able to use them well.

Chapters

1. Introduction
2. Systems Programming
3. Asynchronous Programming
4. Unit Testing
5. File Backup
6. Data Tables
7. Pattern Matching
8. Parsing Expressions
9. Page Templates
10. Build Manager
11. Layout Engine
12. File Interpolator
13. Module Loader
14. Style Checker
15. Code Generator
16. Documentation Generator
17. Module Bundler
18. Package Manager
19. Virtual Machine
20. Debugger
21. Conclusion

Appendices

1. License
2. Code of Conduct
3. Contributing
4. Bibliography
5. Glossary

Acknowledgments

Greg Wilson is a programmer, author, and educator based in Toronto, Canada. He was the co-founder and first Executive Director of Software Carpentry and received ACM SIGSOFT's Influential Educator Award in 2020.

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