The Only Unbreakable Law
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN treats it as the definitive explanation of Conway's Law and links it in almost any thread about org structure shaping software.
What it is
Casey Muratori's lecture, originally given at the Technical University of Madrid, arguing that Conway's Law is the only viable candidate for a true law of software architecture. He explains how software mimics the organization over time, using examples like Windows' multiple volume controls.
Recommended by 12 HN commenters across 9 different months, 2022 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec perrygeo · 2023-04 · on “Conway’s Law”
Some great examples in "Conway's Nightmare" [this video] My favorite from memory is that Windows now has five completely different volume control UIs, each of which can be traced directly to distinct product teams and their organizational dynamics across time. This video makes goes futher and says that the evidence for Conway's law is not only strong but has yet to be disproven; the closest we can get to a fundamental law in computer science. Given that software is always created for a social purpose (there are some users or beneficiaries of the technology), it's sort of a tautology that social dynamics are going to strongly influence design.
Strong rec fwlr · 2023-07 · on “The Most Powerful Law in Software”
Casey Muratori has an excellent lecture on this same topic, which draws many of the same conclusions as this article but goes into more depth on why it happens and what it means to you in a practical sense. ( [this video] , skip to 15:30 as the beginning is about setting up the idea of software laws, discussing other candidates for strong software laws, and the history of the law.) The Cliffs notes if you don’t have time for 45 minutes of video: Conway’s Law is pithily stated as “org charts reproduce themselves in the product”, or more comprehensibly as “the software architecture will resemble the org chart of the company producing it”*. The mechanism of this effect is communication bandwidth. Co
Strong rec krig · 2024-03 · on “Leaving LinkedIn”
If you want to dig into Conway's law and its implications, I can't recommend this video essay by Casey Muratori enough: [this video] Fair warning though, you'll lose all hope that companies like Microsoft will ever manage to produce anything that they don't then ruin.
Recommends dmitriid · 2022-03 · on “The Windows Shutdown crapfest (2006)”
A good illustration of The One Unbreakable Law [this video] (Conway's Law, but do watch the talk for more context)
Recommends iamwil · 2022-03 · on “How do Committees Invent? (1968) [pdf]”
Funny, just watched Casey Muratori cover the same topic on his channel: [this video] I thought he covered it well. He considered the temporal aspect of orgs, which meant that software, over the years not only mimic the org, but every org that had ever been there over time. edit: oh, and unexpectedly, he's still around and on twitter. [LINK]
Recommends yes_but_no · 2022-03 · on “Tao of Node – Design, Architecture and Best Practices”
Great article. I also suggest watching Casey M. recent video[0] about Conways Law. How organization in your company determines what you can/will do and how organization of your code follows the same principles. Starting with just the handlers and introducing layers as you make sure its time is great way. [0] [this video]
Recommends bambax · 2022-05 · on “Learnings from 5 years of tech startup code audits”
> the major foot-gun that got a lot of places in trouble was the premature move to microservices I sometimes wonder if the move to microservices isn't just a weird consequence of Conway's law in reverse: make a department of each developer, let them have their thing. (See also this amazing video about Conway's law: [this video] )
Recommends molly0 · 2023-04 · on “Conway’s Law”
I remember seeing a great explanation of Conway's Law by Casey Muratori: [this video] (The whole talk is good but Conway-s law starts at 11:37)