Course · 7 lessons ~30 hr Intermediate

Foundations — Code Quality & Craft

Foundations — Code Quality & Craft covers: A Philosophy of Software Design, The Pragmatic Programmer, The Clean Code Collection, Tidy First?. Reframe code quality as the foundation of architecture. Good architecture cannot be built on bad code. This module establishes the habits, vocabulary, and standards that every subsequent module assumes. You already practice most of Module 0 instinctively. What this module adds is vocabulary and frameworks for decisions you already make intuitively. When you review a PR and think "this service object feels wrong," Ousterhout gives you the word: it is a shallow module — it adds an abstraction layer without reducing complexity. When you decide whether to refactor a model before adding a feature, Beck gives you the framework: tidy first is a separate, nameable decision with its own economics.

reading · we frame, you read MIT or the canonical taught · we author, no canonical fits ↺ spirals back to earlier lessons

reflection reading · 8 min

Honest Take — Before You Begin

Companion to SOFTWAREARCHITECTUREMASTERYCURRICULUM.md Honest reflections, no sugar coating.

preview →

reading · 30 min + ~257 min canonical L1

A Philosophy of Software Design: The Recalibration

Somewhere in your codebase there is an extraction you're proud of. A service object, maybe — you pulled forty lines out of a controller, gave it a clear name, wrote a spec for it.…

primary Sandi Metz: All the Little Things (RailsConf 2014)

after L1 locked

reading · 30 min + ~257 min canonical L1

The Pragmatic Programmer: The Craft Re-Read

Here's a test of whether you learned DRY or memorized it: two Rails models both have a fullname method that concatenates first and last name. Is that a DRY violation?

primary Sandi Metz: All the Little Things (RailsConf 2014)

after L2 locked

reading · 30 min + ~257 min canonical L1

The Clean Code Collection: The Classics, Read Critically

No book in this path has shaped more code review comments than Clean Code — and no book in this path is more sharply criticized today. "Functions should be four lines." "Zero-argu…

primary Sandi Metz: All the Little Things (RailsConf 2014)

after L3 locked

reading · 30 min + ~257 min canonical L1

Tidy First?: The Economics of Small Improvements

You've opened a file to add one feature, and the file is a mess. You know this moment — every working engineer meets it weekly. There are exactly four options: tidy first, tidy af…

primary Sandi Metz: All the Little Things (RailsConf 2014)

after L4 locked

exercise reading · 30 min L1

Module Checklist

Work through each item before the checkpoint.

after L5 locked

project reading · 120 min L1

Project: Deep vs Shallow — A Code-Quality Analysis

Take three classes from a codebase you know well and read them the way Ousterhout, Hunt & Thomas, and Beck would. The goal is to build the eye that separates a deep module from a …

after L6 locked

7 lessons. Read in order; spiral back when you need to. By the end you'll have used the core ideas twice — once on the abstract, once on something you'll meet at work next week.