Software Architecture in Practice

For many of us who have made a career out of designing and building software we have learnt through trial and error. If we were lucky there was a senior analyst or developer who instilled in us some best practice for software design. The chances are that we had very little formal training in design. Where training does happen it seems to be mainly in the nuts and bolts of technology rather than the overall themes. If you, like me, feel that there is a gap in your basic knowledge of software design then this is certainly a book that should be on your bookshelf.

I bought the first edition of this book many years ago and to be honest found it hard going. There was a lot of material which at the time I found hard to digest. Either the second edition is greatly improved or I've got better at understanding it (probably a bit of both to be honest) but this book is simply invaluable.

One of my favourite sections is the one of system qualities. As I've discussed elsewhere these are the SEI's take on the non-functional aspects of a system. The section talks about some of the architectural approaches to meeting quality requirements in a pseudo-pattern style. This is excellent as it takes the core concepts and exposes them, stripping out the technical details which often cloud our understanding of the issue at hand.

This is what is so good about this book, as well as others from the SEI, they help us to understand the general problem without getting dragged into the specific details of an issue. Technologies come and go but these underlying principles remain the same and it is a good understanding of these that makes a great IT Architect.

To purchase this book click on this link Software Architecture in Practice (SEI Series in Software Engineering)