[ChuckMcM]

I would be interested to know why you think of them as unnecessary details.

What I like about them are that they describe large complex systems that have to work with a bunch of people plugging in their own implementation of the parts. For me, both books give a good sense of what you need to do to enable the product you are working on to evolve successfully, and highlight areas where a lack of flexibility impacted that evolution.

So often in programming you look at your code and have to evaluate not only what features you are delivering but also what paths you are closing off with your design. In my experience the folks who excel at programming hold both the model of the system in their mind while they execute some part of it.

I think both books give a flavor of that.