Extreme Programming

Matt Heusser | 1 Nov 2007 13:05

Agile Architecture - Follow-Up

I've been thinking more on that whole Agile Architecture thing ... here's
some ramblings on the subject to spark debate.

 am a bit frazzled by the term "Software Architect." I don't think it means
anything. <http://www.ddj.com/architect/184407745>

Or, perhaps, to put it another way: Perhaps it means everything?

The confusion of the word reminds me of the confusion over the term testing,
which reminds me of Brett Pettichord's Four Schools of Software Testing.
<http://www.io.com/%7Ewazmo/papers/four_schools.pdf>

It occurs to me that there are at least five distinct schools of computer
architecture:

CPU Architecture: Highly specialized and different; slim to never confused
with the items below
A CPU Architect looks a lot like: An electrical engineer
Exemplar: Multi-Core CPU's

Systems Architecture: Interested in the technology stack used by the
business  for example  HP/UX servers running Oracle as DB servers, linux
web servers, desktop PC's with windows
A systems architect looks a lot like: A director of IT services
Exemplar: Service Level Agreements, Redundancy, Failover, Backups

Software Architecture: Interested in implementing various strategies to
solve problems, such as Session, State, Domain Logic, Polymorphism, MVC, and
so on
A Software Architect looks like: A highly-abstracted programmer

(Continue reading)

headers

Scott Ambler | 2 Nov 2007 13:31

Re: Agile Architecture - Follow-Up

I have a few thoughts about architecture at 
http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileArchitecture.htm and the 
primary message is to keep things as simple as possible.  From your 
discussion I suspect that you might be over-complicating things or 
looking for a more complicated solution than you really need.

At http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/initialArchitectureModeling.htm 
I describe how to do a bit of architecture envisioning at the 
beginning of a project to get you going in the right technical 
direction. You can do architecture modeling without it turning into 
some form of ivory tower documentation effort.

- Scott

To Post a message, send it to:   extremeprogramming <at> eGroups.com

To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: extremeprogramming-unsubscribe <at> eGroups.com

ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com

headers

Steven Gordon | 1 Nov 2007 14:51

Re: Agile Architecture - Follow-Up

I cannot confirm or dispute what constitutes architecture to various
specializations or aspects of development.

My take on what would make any of them agile is to avoid prematurely
committing to any solution for any architectural problem any sooner
than absolutely necessary by:
- doing whatever constitutes architecture during the implementation of
a thin, representative slice of the system,
- getting concrete feedback (testing and interaction with stakeholders),
- reflecting on what worked and what did not work,
- taking into account everything that was learned, repair and then
repeat on the next thin slice of the system (until the entire system
is satisfactorily done).

Steven Gordon

On 11/1/07, Matt Heusser <matt.heusser <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> I've been thinking more on that whole Agile Architecture thing ... here's
> some ramblings on the subject to spark debate.
>
>  am a bit frazzled by the term "Software Architect." I don't think it means
> anything. <http://www.ddj.com/architect/184407745>
>
> Or, perhaps, to put it another way: Perhaps it means everything?
>
> The confusion of the word reminds me of the confusion over the term testing,
> which reminds me of Brett Pettichord's Four Schools of Software Testing.
> <http://www.io.com/%7Ewazmo/papers/four_schools.pdf>
>
> It occurs to me that there are at least five distinct schools of computer

(Continue reading)