The Modern Software Architect

The
modern
architect

A
Pragmatic
View
from
the
Trenches

One
deﬁnition

!   ”Software
Architect
is
a
computer
manager
who

makes
high-‐level
design
choices
and
dictates

technical
standards,
including
software
coding

standards,
tools
and
platforms”

Main
Responsibility

!   Limiting
choices
available
during
development
by

!   Choosing
a
standard
way
of
development

!   Creating,
deﬁning
or
choosing
a
framework
for
the
application

!   Recognizing
potential
reuse
by

!   Observe
and
understand
the
broader
system
environment

!   Creating
component
design

!   Having
knowledge
of
other
applications
in
the
organisation

!   Subdivide
a
complex
application
into
manageable
entities

!   Grasp
the
functionality
of
each
component
within
the
application

!   Understand
the
component
interactions
and
dependencies

!   Communicate
these
concepts
to
developers

Enterprise
Architectural

Growth

Startup/
Small-‐cap

Mid-‐cap

Enterprise

Tiered
architects

Strategic

Thinking

System

Interactions
Communication
Design

Enterprise

Erchitect

Across
Project

Highly

Abstracted

Across

Organisation

Minimal,
High

Level

Solution

Architect

Focused
on

Solution
Very
Detailed
Multiple
Teams
Detailed

Application

Architect

Component
Re-‐
use,

Maintainability

Single

Application
Single
Project
Very
Detailed

The
Dictating
Ivory

Tower

Enterprise

Architect

Solution

Architect

Application

Architect

Developer
Developer

Application

Architect

Solution

Architect

Application

Architect

Application

Architect

Developer
Developer

UML

Design

Manual
Req

spec

TCO

ROI

EJB

MOM

ESB

Business

Intelligence

Agile

That
is,
while
there
is
value
in
the
items
on
the

right,
we
value
the
items
on
the
left
more

We
are
uncovering
better
ways
of
developing
software
by
doing
it

and
helping
others
do
it.
Through
this
work
we
have
to
come
to
value

Agile

That
is,
while
there
is
value
in
the
items
on
the

right,
we
value
the
items
on
the
left
more

Up-‐front
design

UML/BML

Organisation

ROI/TCO

Iterative

Real
Options

Retrospectives

Craftmanship

Enterprise
Agility

Adoption

Startup/
Small-‐cap

Mid-‐cap

Enterprise

Agile
Iterations

Options/
Plans

Execution
Validation

Reﬂection

”Tends
to
be
focussed
on
delivering
functionality
rather

than
looking
after
their
architecture”

Project

Manager

?

Irrespectively
of
scale

!   Cross-‐cutting
concerns
such
as
logging
and
exception
handling

!   Security;
including
authentication,
authorisation
and
conﬁdentiality
of

sensitive
data

!   Performance,
scalability,
availability
and
other
quality
attributes

!   Audit
and
other
regulatory
requirements

!   Real-‐world
constraints
of
the
environment

!   Interoperability/integration
with
other
software
systems

!   Operational,
support
and
maintenance
requirements

!   Consistency
of
structure
and
approach
to
solving
problems

!   Implementing
features
across
the
codebase

!   Evaluating
that
the
foundations
you’re
building
will
allow
you
to
deliver

what
you
set
out
to
deliver

Time,
Leading
to..?

!   Software
Entropy

receives
no
focus

!   as
a
system
is
modiﬁed,
its
disorder,
or
entropy,
always
increases.
This
is
known
as

software
entropy

!   When
a
program
is
modiﬁed,
its
complexity
will
increase,
provided
that
one
does
not

actively
work
against
this.

!   Technical
Debt
increases

!   a
neologistic
metaphor
referring
to
the
eventual
consequences
of
poor
software

architecture
and
software
development
within
a
codebase.

!   Technical
Debt
will
increase
until
eventually
only
rewrite
is
possible

!   Tribal
Knowledge
is
not
Internalized

!   Tribal
Knowledge
or
Know-‐How
is
the
collective
wisdom
of
the
organization.
It
is
the

sum
of
all
the
knowledge
and
capabilities
of
all
the
people.

!   Knowledge
must
be
transferred
or
else
behaviour
is
duplicated
or
forgotten

!   Who
is
around
the
agile
project
to
identify
reuse
and
manage
complexity?

What
IF

!   ”Software
Architect
is
a
computer
manager
who

makes
high-‐level
design
choices
and
dictates

technical
standards,
including
software
coding

standards,
tools
and
platforms”

!   ”Software
Architect
is
a
techo
polymath
who
oﬀers

high-‐level
design
choices
and
and
facilitates
best

technical
practises,
including
software
coding

standards,
tools
and
platforms”

Main
Responsibilities

!   Technical
Leadership
of
the
product

!   Set
the
standards
for
development

!   Provide
high-‐level
design
practises

!   Ensure
best
practise
and
communicate
these

!   Minimize
software
entropy
and
increase
product
quality

!   Ensure
that
the
architecture
is
suﬃciently
documented

!   Enterprise
collaborator
and
networker

!   Identify
and
support
re-‐use

!   Collaborate
with
enterprise
architects
to
incorporate
cross-‐
cutting
concerns

Convergence

BUSINESS
=
IT

Project

Manager

Up-‐Front
Project

Planning

Structure

Understand
the

significant
structural

elements
and
how
they

fit
together
based
on
the

architectural
drivers

Design
and

Decomposition
down
to

containers
and

components

Risk

Identify
and
mitigate
the

highest
priority
risk

Risk-‐storming
and

concrete
experiments

Vision

Create
and
communicate

a
vision
for
the
team
to

work
with

Context,
container
and

component
diagrams

Just
enough
up
front
design
to
create
firm
foundations
for
the

software
product
and
its
delivery

In
the
face
of

Continuous
Delivery

!   Set
the
technology
stack

!   Control
the
build
process

!   Be
responsible
for
deployment

!   May
be
handled
by
the
Build
Engineer

Shifting
the
focus

!   Focus
for
an
application
architect
in
the
presence
of

working
software
must
be
to
facilitate
the
team
to

make
the
best
decisions
and
help
provide
the
best

possible
platform
for
further
extension

Mastering
Skillset

Remember

Describe

Name

Find

List

Relate

Write

Understand

Explain

Compare

Discuss

Predict

Outline

Restate

Apply

Complete

Use

Examine

Illustrate

Classify

Solve

Analyze

Compare

contrast

Examine

Explain

Identify

Categorize

Investigate

Evaluate

Justify

Assess

Prioritize

Recommend

Rate

Decide

Create

Plan

Invent

Compose

Design

Construct

Imagine

Bloom’s
Taxonomy

Problem
Solving
in
your

Team

Stack

Overﬂow

Google

Architect

Smart
Guy

Stack
Overﬂow

I
need
to
send
multiple
requests
to
many
diﬀerent
web
services
and
receive
the
results.

The
problem
is
that,
if
I
send
the
requests
one
by
one
it
takes
so
long
as
I
need
to
send
and

process
all
individually.

I
am
wondering
how
I
can
send
all
the
requests
at
once
and
receive
the
results.

Top
3
Ludicrous

Answers

!   It
has
got
various
option
to
develop
this:

!   JMS
:
quality
of
service
and
management,
e.g.
redelivery

attempt,
dead
message
queue,
load
management,
scalability,

clustering,
monitoring,
etc.

!   Simply
using
the
Observer
pattern
for
this.
For
more
details

OODesign
and
How
to
solve
produce
and
consumer
follow
this

Kodelog

!   Looking
at
the
problem,
you
need
to
integrate
your
application

with
10+
diﬀerent
webservices.
While
making
all
the
calls

asynchronous.
This
can
be
done
easily
with
Apache
Camel.

!   You
can
ask
your
jax-‐ws
implementation
to
generate

asynchronous
bindings
for
the
web
service.

Availability

!   A
software
architect
must
have
enough
time
and
interest

to
answer
all
questions
from
teams
and
individuals

!   A
software
architect
must
facilitate
learning
and

mentoring

!   A
software
architect
must
communicate
shared
models

and
shared
visions

!   By
having
high
developer
interaction
the
software

architect
can

!   Identify
re-‐use
and
componentization

!   Increase
awareness
of
cross-‐cutting
concerns

Quality
Assurance

!   Code
Review
is
a
systematic
examination
of
computer

source
code.
It
is
intended
to
ﬁnd
and
ﬁx
mistakes

overlooked
in
the
initial
development
phase
improving

both
the
overall
quality
of
software
and
the

developers’
skills.

!   Automatic
as
well
as
manual
intervention

!   Automatic
testing

!   Automatic
software
analysis

!   Peer
review

Automatic
Testing

!   Accepted
curse
of
unit
testing

!   Documentation

!   Regression

!   Works
best
on
loose
coupled
entities

!   Focus
on
Integration
testing

!   End
to
end
scenario
support

!   Ensure
that
Input
leads
to

Output

!   Helped
by
virtualization
and
continuous
deployments

!   Watch
out
for
maintenance
costs

Automatic
Software

Verification

!   Perform
automatic
analysis
of
source
code
and

binaries

!   Tools
such
as
PMD,
Checkstyle,
Findbugs,
jdepend,

classycle,
Emma,
Cobertura,
Pathfinder,
ThreadSafe,

Macker,
clirr,
Tattletale
(for
Java
development)

!   Or
collective
in
reporting
systems
such
as
SonarQube,

QALab
or
Xradar

!   Important
to
apply
qualified
analysis
on
top
of
the

result

Peer
Review

!   Formal
or
informal
collaborate
eﬀort
of
cross-‐
examination
of
source
code

!   Review
improve
quality
by

!   Rejecting
or
improving
commits

!   Committers
and
reviewers
learn
from
each
other

!   Motivation
to
do
boring
tasks

!   But
can
also
improve
overall
morale
and
team
coherence

!   Important
to
keep
an
open
culture
and
avoid
blame
game

For
any
software
team
not
already
doing
so,
the
single
most
eﬀective
thing

It
can
do
to
improve
product
quality
is
to
introduce
a
code
review
process

The
Code
doesn’t
Tell

the
Whole
Story

!   Code
may
hint
at

!   (Functionality)

!   Programming
language

!   Architectural
tiers

!   Naming
standards

!   Patterns
and
idioms

!   But
even
those
hints
may
be
misinterpreted

!   Code
may
not
reveal

!   Why
the
technologies
were
chosen

!   The
overall
structure
of
the
system

!   Whether
any
common
patterns
or
principles
are
used

!   How
and
where
to
add
new
functionality

!   How
security,
stability,
scalability,
etc
is
achieved

Documenting

Architecture

!   Documentation
is
not
hard

!   Brieﬂy
outline
technologies
and
choices

!   Keep
the
stories
short
and
to
the
point

!   Create
simpliﬁed
diagrams

!   Keep
it
with
the
source
code
under
revision
control

Example
1
-‐
AsciiDoc

!   Extremely
simple
markup,
integrates
with
builds

<profile>

<!-‐-‐
=========================================================================
-‐-‐>

<!-‐-‐
Include
a
documentation
profile
if
the
project
have
src/main/asciidoc
-‐-‐>

<!-‐-‐
Adds
a
process-‐asciidoc
goal
to
the
generate-‐resources
phase

-‐-‐>

<!-‐-‐
=========================================================================
-‐-‐>

<id>fdc-‐documentation-‐profile</id>

<activation>

<file><exists>${basedir}/src/main/asciidoc</exists>
</file>

</activation>

<build>

<plugins>

<plugin>

<groupId>org.asciidoctor</groupId>

<artifactId>asciidoctor-‐maven-‐plugin</artifactId>

<configuration>

<backend>html</backend>

<outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/docs</outputDirectory>

<sourceHighlighter>coderay</sourceHighlighter>

</configuration>

</plugin>

</plugins>

</build>

</profile>

Ex

Example
2
-‐
gmaven

!   Generate
lists
from
source
code
scanning

<plugin>

<groupId>org.codehaus.gmaven</groupId>

<artifactId>gmaven-‐plugin</artifactId>

<version>1.5</version>

<executions>

<execution>

<phase>generate-‐sources</phase>

<goals>

<goal>execute</goal>

</goals>

<configuration>

<source>
src/main/gscripts/services.groovy
</source>

</configuration>

</execution>

</executions>

<dependencies>

<dependency>

<groupId>com.thoughtworks.qdox</groupId>

<artifactId>qdox</artifactId>

<version>1.12.1</version>

</dependency>

</dependencies>

</plugin>

def
dir
=
new
File(project.basedir.parent,
"gps_persistence/src/main/java")

def
builder
=
new
com.thoughtworks.qdox.JavaDocBuilder()

builder.addSourceTree(dir)

def
services
=
builder.classes.findAll
{

it.annotations.find
{
it.type.value
==
"org.springframework.stereotype.Service"
}

}

def
servicelist
=
new
File(project.build.directory,
"service.ad")

servicelist.withPrintWriter
{
pw
-‐>

services.each
{

pw.println
"+${it.name}+”

if
(it.comment)
pw.println
"${it.comment}”

pw.println
'[cols="2",
options="header"1]’

pw.println
'|===’

pw.println
'|Method’

pw.println
'|Description’

it.methods.each

{

if
(it.public)
{

pw.println
"|${it.name}”

pw.println
"|${it.comment?:''}”

}

}

pw.println
'|===’

}

}

Example
3
-‐
Violet

!   Simple
tools
for
structural
diagrams

Are
you
responsive?

!   All
changes
to
a
software
product
must
be
reversible

!   Deployments
fail
for
many
reasons
outwith
control,
making
this
a
real

risk
in
any
software
project

!   However
the
risk
is
easy
to
avert
by
proper
rollback
mechanisms

!   Projects
are
no
longer
static,
and
must
be
palpable
by
engineering

staﬀ
and
newcomers

!   Especially
when
projects
are
signed
oﬀ

!   Ask
yourself
these
questions

!   How
long
time
does
it
take
to
check-‐out
the
software,
circumvent
a

simple
problem
and
re-‐release
your
product
to
production

environment?

!   How
long
time
does
it
take
to
integrate
a
new
developer
with
a

workable
developer
environment?

In
total

!   Engage
in
Just
Enough
Up-‐Front
Design

!   Set
the
standards
and
the
builds

!   Evolve
the
documentation

!   Master
Code
Reviews

!   Be
the
go-‐to
guy

!   Be
responsible
for
the
product
artefact

Q
(+A?)

I
left
the
murky,
bedraggled
streets
of
home
to
venture
on
a

Journey
for
a
thousand
miles
and
more.

I
had
a
vision
and
a
purpose
and
everything
around
me
sprang
to
life

In
a
newfound
thrill
of
excitement.

Arriving
at
my
ﬁnal
destination
I
saw
wonders
beyond
compare
and
such

Joy
and
such
life
that
everything
fell
into
place
and
harmony.

How
can
this
be
of
wonder,
you
ask,
when
I
reveal
the
ﬁnal
destination

As
the

origins
of
my
journey.
But
alas,
everything
old
can
be
born
again

From
a
new
perspective

The Modern Software Architect

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