DoD Ch. 13

     Brooks starts the chapter talking about the roles of exemplars.  He mentions many designs are not all-new but rather based around old designs and made better. The next page talks about computer designers and how professionals have a wider range of exemplars than amateur designers. In order to study rationales of exemplars, one must study the technical papers and books about products, not just the basic manual.  Then Brooks talks about the evolution from first-gen computers to third-gen computers.  Then came virtual memory, the minicomputer, and the microcomputer. Brooks next writes about how authors can improve exemplars and write about them.  This practice takes careful criticism and in depth analysis.  Then Brooks talks about how designers must not be lazy but must have pride and originality in order to really create new exemplars.

DoD Ch. 12

     Brooks opens the chapter talking about esthetics and how people have been decorating things for centuries.  Then he related this topic to programming and mathematics.  The word parsimony and structural clarity arise in Brooks discussion about programming elegance.  Brooks continues discussing orthogonality and propriety issues in computer architecture.  He hits on the importance of structural clarity as well.  Then he moves onto styles of design. In his style section, he hit many topics like the importance of details, minimization of mental effort, clarity, and consistency. Then Brooks talks about the properties of style, i.e. specification, evolution, and consistency. He continues with some guidelines about how to achieve good style. These guidelines are make conscious judgements, practice, practice, practice, revise, and choose designers carefully.

DoD Ch. 11

     Brooks begins by talking about constraints challenge the designer.  Then he talks about the different types of constraints and describes each one: Real, Obsolete, Intentional artificial, and constraints misperceived as real.  Obsolete constraints come from using old technology. Misperceived constraints are constraints that are subtle and hard to see. Brooks further explains these types of constraints as false constraints.  Then he goes on to talk about general-purpose vs special-purpose constraints. An example is designing a 100 sq-ft house versus designing a 1000 sq-ft house for a family with 2 children in NC facing north.  Brooks then talks more about these general-purpose vs special-purpose computer architecture. Brooks finishes talking about software and spatial design.

DoD Ch. 10

     Chapter ten starts with opening a discussion about budget resources, cost ratios, and many other budgeted critical resources.  Then Brooks talks about the specific budgeted resources for specific careers, i.e. architects, comp scientist, ect. Then he talks about how budget resources have changes over the years with new technology. Next the chapter describes who, how, and why certain people must be in charge of budget control. The chapter ends with Books talking about Ken Iverson's award winning APL language.