Ask HN: Best codebases to study to learn software design?

Maybe I’m just not good enough at paying attention, but for me it seems like you have to actually run into problems over and over and figure out how to avoid the problems. Then you end up being able to mentally simulate what problems you will run into, and design is basically all about avoiding future problems of various kinds (and balancing tradeoffs about which future problems to avoid and how much effort to put into each, whether you can solve multiple with one design play, etc).

> for me it seems like you have to actually run into problems over and over and figure out how to avoid the problems

This shows how immature the field of software engineering is. Imagine bridges or houses were built like that. Or your surgeon was trained like that.

Over time, we hopefully develop estblished norms, but at the moment, things are too much in flux. Put 5 sw engineers in a room, pose a problem and you will get not just 5 different solution proposals, but there will likely be strong disagreements on which approach is a good one.

"I recognize a good solution when I see it" is just not good enough for a serious engineering discipline.

> This shows how immature the field of software engineering is. Imagine bridges or houses were built like that. Or your surgeon was trained like that.

It's not that software engineering is immature, it's just more dynamic.

We are not the surgeon, we write the surgeon. We write a surgeon to fix a broken leg. Once that is done, we don't have to fix another leg. Now we need to reattach a finger. Once that is solved, maybe replace a kidney.

You cannot repetitively train or have strict rules for that, because every time it's something new. You need to have broad knowledge and experience to be able to fight the next unknown challenge. It's unknown because it's never been done before, or it has been done but your competitor will not reveal the details.

Building bridges or being a surgeon sounds very boring to me, since it's always the same (maybe some minor variants). Building software? Very much not the same.