Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowlerby Martin Fowler
Shares rank 15 of 21 software engineering books by recommenders
People recommend it for moving past single-class business logic toward designing larger systems, and for understanding how real application code is structured.
People recommend it for moving past single-class business logic toward designing larger systems, and for understanding how real application code is structured.
3 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 3
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 3 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Useful for designing larger systems
“Fowler's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture is good for expanding past business logic to larger systems”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Solid and Clean Code never felt solid or clean to me” Helps explain Rails API class structure
“Try reading the aforementioned book, and look at the classes in the Rails API.”
Comment from 21 Oct 2026 in “Rust off Rails: The opinionated web stack for the AI era”
Other software engineering books people recommend
The four most recommended other software engineering books, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Mythical Man-Monthby Frederick P. Brooks | 56 | 3 | 95% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Designing Data-Intensive Applicationsby Martin Kleppmann | 37 | 1 | 97% | 12 | — | Approved |
| A Philosophy of Software Designby John K. Ousterhout | 28 | 1 | 97% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Code Completeby Steve McConnell | 14 | 0 | 100% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Patterns of Enterprise Application Architectureby Martin FowlerThis page | 3 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
2 of the 3 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Try reading the aforementioned book, and look at the classes in the Rails API.”
“Fowler's Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture is good for expanding past business logic to larger systems”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.