Co-authored with dani-weinberg, this book extends general-systems-thinking from understanding systems to designing them. Where introduction-to-general-systems-thinking-1975 was about observation, modeling, and heuristics for understanding existing systems, this companion volume asks: what principles should guide the creation of new systems?
The book operates at a level of abstraction above any particular engineering domain. The "systems" in question are not limited to software systems — they include organizational systems, information systems, and any designed artifact that exhibits the complex behavior that general systems theory addresses. This generality was intentional: Weinberg's systems thinking project was always broader than software, and this book makes the breadth explicit.
Key themes include the relationship between a system's structure and its behavior, the trade-offs between adaptability and efficiency in system design, and the ways that designers' mental models shape (and constrain) the systems they create. The last theme connects directly to programming-as-human-activity: if the designer is a human, then the design process is a human activity, subject to all the cognitive limitations and social dynamics that Weinberg had been documenting since psychology-of-computer-programming-1971.
The Weinberg-Weinberg co-authorship reflects a genuine intellectual partnership. Dani brought a systems design perspective that complemented Jerry's psychological and observational approach, and the book's treatment of design as a disciplined practice — not an art that resists analysis — bears the stamp of both authors. Published by dorset-house-publishing during the consulting-and-systems-era-1980-1989, it represents the peak of Weinberg's systems thinking output.