[Dubai AI Hub] Knowledge Lab #2: Software Fundamentals - Designing Against Complexity

​Hello Dubai AI builders 👋🏼

​We're back with our second Knowledge Lab, and this time we're putting the papers down and picking up a book.

​Knowledge Lab #2: Designing Against Complexity

​Agents can now write more code in an afternoon than a team used to write in a month. Almost nobody is asking what that does to the design of a codebase.

​John Ousterhout's A Philosophy of Software Design argues that complexity is the single thing that makes software hard, and that it accumulates quietly, one reasonable decision at a time. It was written before coding agents existed. It might be the most relevant book of the moment.

​We'll work through the core ideas from the book on the day and how we can leverage those ideas to improve the way we use coding agents.

​Then as usual, we have the open mic. This is the main event where we have a full hour of the room working out what any of this means for how we actually build; how do these principles change the way we work with coding agents? What does a codebase designed to be worked on by agents actually look like? And is "the agent can just refactor it later" a real answer or a comforting lie?

​How the day runs

​10:00am · Doors open, check-in and coffee
10:30am · Intro: why complexity is the real problem in software
10:50am · Covering principles and lessons from A Philosophy of Software Design book by John Ousterhout.
11:50am · Open-mic discussion
12:50pm · Social
2:00pm · Close

​Who this is for

​Anyone who wants to go deeper than the surface level. AI engineers, developers, technical founders, and students all welcome!

​Our academic partner

​Big thanks to The British University in Dubai for kindly hosting us again!

​📅 Saturday, 26th September 2026 | 10:00am - 2:00pm
🎟 Free · spots limited by venue capacity, so register early.

​Who we are

​Dubai AI Hub is a builder-first AI community for engineers, founders, and indie hackers. All our events are free, and it's just engineers talking to engineers. No sales pitches. Builder Labs are where we build. Knowledge Labs are where we think.