The Architecture of Open Source Applications

Architects look at thousands of buildings during their training and study critiques of those buildings written by masters. In contrast most software developers only ever get to know a handful of large programs well usually programs they wrote themselves and never study the great programs of history. As a result they repeat one anothers mistakes rather than building on one anothers successes. This books goal is to change that. In it the authors of twenty-five open source applications explain how their software is structured and why. What are each programs major components? How do they interact? And what did their builders learn during their development? In answering these questions the contributors to this book provide unique insights into how they think.