3 ms·
Ask HN: What are great examples of high level design documentation for software?
I have over twenty years of software engineering experience and I've seen countless examples of architecture documents but I rarely see a high level design document that really stands out. I'm also surprised that there isn't a de facto specification or book that I know of.
What are good examples or templates for a high level design that you use for describing distributed systems? Is there a book or similar resource that I'm missing?
- 9wzYQbTYsAIc 4y agoThis is likely not what you are looking for, but worth pointing out, as the web is a distributed system. https://datatracker.ietf.org/ https://datatracker.ietf.org/ https://www.w3.org/standards/ https://www.w3.org/standards/ edit: Not as formalized as other documents, but you you might enjoy this high-level document: https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/LinkedData.html Both IETF and W3C use strong templates for their documents and have well established processes for working groups.
- _448 4y ago> I'm also surprised that there isn't a de facto specification... Wasn't OMG/UML suppose to do that?
- StuckDuck 4y agoI think the gnome project deserves a mention here, their docs program is really complete, and covers many high level aspects of how to use the software. Most gnome apps also use it
- than3 4y agoThat may have been true at one point, but post Gnome 2 exodus, a surface look will look like its good, but any deeper look will show its outdated. Its also not very maintainable/supportable, and while that is changing slowly, they've written themselves into a corner in some respects.