Six foundational books, re-forged into one reading experience.

The AOSA series, 500 Lines or Less, and Software Design by Example — one clean library with consistent typography, navigation, and chapter structure. Free, non-commercial, no account.

6 books · 135 chapters · ~678k words

Waitlist · Doors open soon

Be there when the crucible pours

No spam. One email when the doors open.

One reader, six classics

Every book keeps its authorship and its license.

Shelf 1 · The AOSA series

How real open source systems are built — told by the people who built them.

The Architecture of Open Source ApplicationsVolume 1Twenty-five authors explain how their programs are structured, and why.

25 chCC BY 3.0

The Architecture of Open Source ApplicationsVolume 2Twenty-four more architectures, from audio editors to distributed file systems.

24 chCC BY 3.0

The Performance of Open Source ApplicationsSpeed, precision & memoryHow developers actually find and fix performance problems — measurement first.

12 chCC BY 3.0

500 Lines or LessSmall programsWhat design decisions look like when a whole system must fit in 500 lines.

22 chCC BY 3.0

Shelf 2 · Software Design by Example

A tool-building tour of software design, one working example at a time.

Software Design by ExampleJavaScript editionBuild the tools you use every day — version control, test frameworks, bundlers.

21 chCC BY-NC 4.0

Software Design by ExamplePython editionThe same tour rebuilt in Python — with 196 exercises and worked solutions.

31 chCC BY-NC 4.0

The measure

A real reading experience

An 80-character serif column, faithful code blocks, figures and footnotes where the authors put them. A document, not a docs site.

No account

Progress that stays yours

Mark chapters read, check off exercises, reveal authored solutions. Everything stays in your browser — nothing to sign up for.

Across the shelf

Search and one glossary

Search all six books at once, and one merged glossary that keeps each book’s own definition side by side.

Coming after launch

The Forge

Aim any chapter at a real repository and forge an Alloy — a personalized tutorial fusing the chapter’s ideas with that codebase, kept on your private Shelf. Runs on your own model access.

Forge an alloy

An empty mold. Pick a chapter, aim it at a repo — the Shelf grows from here.

The doors

Six books, one reader. Free when it opens.

No spam. One email when the doors open.