Call for Head First Design Meditations

We've got books covering programming techniques, APIs, idioms, and of course design patterns. But do you ever find yourself needing some software design insight, wisdom, or just a little creative push?

Although I'm not a musician, I've always been inspired by Brian Eno's work called Oblique Strategies, which consists of nothing more than a deck of cards in a black box. Each card in the deck contains a working principle that Eno used in the studio in a pressure situation or in a situation where he just needed a little mind jogging. In those moments he could turn to the deck and choose a card at random.

The instructions that came with the cards were as follows:

These cards evolved from our separate observations on the principles underlying what we were doing. Sometimes they were recognized in retrospect (intellect catching up with intuition), sometimes they were identified as they were happening, sometimes they were formulated.

They can be used as a pack (a set of possibilities being continuously reviewed in the mind) or by drawing a single card from the shuffled pack when a dilemma occurs in a working situation. In this case,the card is trusted even if its appropriateness is quite unclear. They are not final, as new ideas will present themselves, and others will become self-evident.

Here's a few examples of cards:

Honour thy error as a hidden intention.

Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do & do the last thing on the list.

Don't be frightened of cliches.

Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics.

Only one element of each kind.

Now these don't translate all that well to software development (although I'm sure I'm going to get email arguing that they do), however I personally would love to have a deck like this based on the software creative act (rather than music). The point isn't so much to get you out of a sticky situation (although it might), but rather to add a little inspiration and insight into your day.

So, here's what we're going to do: We're going to start collecting short quotes of software design wisdom, insight, little idioms and perhaps some outright quotes from some notable people in the field. These are going to be combined into a REAL deck called Head First Design Meditations. Here's a couple prototype cards (maybe not the best, this was more a graphic exploration):

We definitely need YOUR input to build this deck, so please send us your submissions. We'll post our favorite candidates here on the site, and possibly even allow people to vote on them. If you submit an idea that makes it in the deck we'll also have a nice card that has all the contributors names on it. Also, everyone who submits an on-topic entry will be entered in a drawing, and we'll give at least a half-dozen away when the deck is finished. The Head First gang will sit down and judge the entries and pick the final deck. We're not quite sure how big the deck will be yet, but we're hoping to allow preorders and also have them for purchase on Amazon.

Here are the submission guidelines:

(1) Send your submissions to [email protected] (feel free to post your ideas as comments as well, but we still need the email).
(2) Keep your submissions short, remember this has to fit on a playing card!
(3) You may submit as many ideas as you like.
(4) In your email indicate the source of the quote (or if it is yours, give us permission to use it).
(5) Make sure we have your name and mailing address.

That's it! If you like the idea please help spread the word!

Eric

Update: We've now got a new, special page for Design Meditations