Oddly specific programming/engineering related books

Kind of specific, and search engines just choke on this because of the key words. I'm going to take a shot in the dark and see if anyone can recommend anything.

I have a couple of audiobooks similar to The Phoenix Project, by Gene Kim. In one of them, they discuss some problems programmers faced at a few big companies and how they ended up solving them. There is no code, it is just regular non-fiction made to read.

For example, one guy was a programmer at Twitter, and they had to decide to query a database for each user when they logged in, or push tweets to each user when the person they were following created them.

Basically, it's like...here is a big problem we faced, and this is the solution we came up with.

So, I'm wondering if there are any books that just deal with some case studies like this and how they ended up solving the problem (again, no actual code involved, because that makes for terrible audiobooks).

Thanks,

It's old, and may not be quite what you're looking for, but my first thought is The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder.

Some tag mashes that might help:
https://www.librarything.com/tag/popular+science,+problem+solving
https://www.librarything.com/tag/popular+science,+project+management
https://www.librarything.com/tag/popular+science,+programming
https://www.librarything.com/tag/computer+science,+popular+science
https://www.librarything.com/tag/engineering,+popular+science

I don’t know about programming, but in the mechanical/civil engineering direction you might be interested in some of the numerous books by Henry Petroski or Simon Winchester. They often start from a specific problem and look at how engineers develop a solution for it.

>4 thorold: Yes, I was about to suggest To Engineer is Human.

Also the recent spate of books about the early NASA teams. Can’t think of titles at the moment.

So, I was ready with a suggestion assuming a broad definition of "engineering", but based on the title you give (which I haven't read, just looked at the LT page) it looks like you're more after project-management business books on programming than "here is a cool technical problem and how someone solved it"? So you'd look in the business section, not the technology section?

Although it's a bit scatter-shot, following on from >4 thorold: and >6 lorax:, what about The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P Brooks—on, among other things, the operating system for the IBM/360?

ETA How about Dreaming in Code, which I haven't read, but here is a review by Joel Spolsky. "Still, it’s a great look at one particular type of software project: the kind that ends up spinning and spinning its wheels without really going anywhere because the vision was too grand and the details were a little short."

one project I was peripherally involved with and might be appropriate is Robots for Shearing Sheep: Shear Magic - but I cannot immediately spot my copy to remind myself of how it approaches things

> 2

Thanks. There is actually an Audible and that sounds good. Will probably pick that up here soon.

>4 thorold:

Yes. I did run across that recommended book by Petroski while doing a deep dive. I wasn't sure if I would like it or not, but I'll throw it on my Audible wish list since you recommended it.

I'm pushing well over 500 books in my audible library. It's getting to the point it is getting hard to find something new to listen to.

>7 haydninvienna: The Mythical Man-Month and Dreaming in Code

Both of those sound excellent. No audible to either one. :(

I may pick them up at some point. Audio books work out better for me because I listen while I walk or ride my bike.

But both of those sound like something I would like. Thanks.

Also no audible, I'm afraid:
Jonathan Schaeffer: One Jump Ahead