Eric Evans and DDD

Evans’s book (sometimes called the Big Blue Book) has become a must-read title for all software engineers and architects. Whenever we talk about DDD, this is the book that started it all. In the book, he gave a common language and a set of principles to design systems that have been refined and clarified over the years by members of an ever-growing community.

The Big Blue Book has sold over 100,000 copies and consistently remains in the top 10 computing books on Amazon. Martin Fowler, a famous thought leader in the software engineering space, describes the book as “an essential read for serious software engineers” (in his martinFowler.com blog, 2020: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/DomainDrivenDesign.html).

However, the book is not without flaws. It has received criticism for being hard to read. In his review, Matt Carroll states: “The book is written in a dialect approaching that of academia. Big words, long sentences, and introduction to concepts that are so abstract that they would be unintelligible without the accompanying examples. In fact, some parts continue to be unintelligible even with the examples” (in his Medium blog, 2016: https://mattcarroll.medium.com/book-review-domain-driven-design-42c96a75a72).

Regardless of the criticism, the book is still as relevant and celebrated as it was years ago when it was published. One reason is that the book outlined three pillars that can be used independently or together to improve complex software projects. In the next section, we will review these pillars.