# johnousterhout/aposd-vs-clean-code

A discussion between John Ousterhout and Robert Martin about differences between John's book "A Philosophy of Software Design" and Bob's book "Clean Code".

Repository: https://github.com/johnousterhout/aposd-vs-clean-code
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/aposd-vs-clean-code
License Family: other
Last push: 2025-04-15T21:45:14+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 30/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 16, release rhythm 35, longevity 52
- inputs: {"age_days": 728, "days_push": 505, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1838, forks 67 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:42.633977+00:00)

## What it is
A written dialogue between John Ousterhout and Robert Martin comparing their software design philosophies from 'A Philosophy of Software Design' and 'Clean Code'. It covers method length, comments, and test-driven development with worked examples.

## Use cases
- compare clean code vs a philosophy of software design
- learn about debates on method length and comments
- understand arguments for and against TDD
- find software design reading material
- study how experienced designers disagree on code style

## When to choose
- you want a direct point-by-point comparison of two influential design books
- you are deciding which design philosophy to adopt
- you want nuanced discussion of comments and TDD tradeoffs

## When to avoid
- you need executable code or a tool
- you want a neutral tutorial rather than a debate
- you need a formal specification of design practices

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: stable
- function: documentation
- domain: developer-tools, tutorials, programming-languages
- platform: cross-platform
- tags: software-design, clean-code, book-discussion, tdd, code-comments, method-length

## Member repositories
- johnousterhout/aposd-vs-clean-code (main) score 30

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:42.633977+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:18:16.580665+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/johnousterhout/aposd-vs-clean-code (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:42.633977+00:00, sha da74988b5369)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.