IEEE Software’s "On Architecture" with Grady Booch

34. On Architecture: The Architecture of Small Things

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 17:21:28 -0800

There is complexity, and then there is organized complexity. Pure complexity is chaotic; organized complexity is full of patterns. Naming these patterns and respecting their intention is the essence of architecture.

33. On Architecture: Unintentional and Unbalanced Transparency

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:06:30 -0800

Security and privacy are interdependent concepts. Each impacts the other, but to say that they are alternatives is a false dichotomy. Both are issues of human concern; their policies and their risks may be made manifest in software-intensive systems. Architecting a system that attends to the needs of security and privacy is possible and desirable, yet there are often unintended and unexpected consequences in so doing.

32. On Architecture: The Soul of a New Watson

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 17:11:57 -0700

Watson, IBM's reasoning system, is both new and exploratory, and managing its architecture has considerable payoff.

31. On Architecture: The Architect's Journey

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 11:08:57 -0700

Architecting a software-intensive system encompasses technical elements and social considerations. Most interesting systems start small and focus on technical concerns, but once they become economically significant, social issues begin looming large.

30. On Architecture: Dominant Design

Tue, 7 Jun 2011 17:28:55 -0700

The architecture of innovative software-intensive systems experience many periods of growth and collapse. Fighting this reality wastes energy; ignoring it is even more disastrous.

29. On Architecture: Draw Me A Picture

Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:41:18 -0700

28. On Architecture: The Elephant and The Blind Programmers

Fri, 8 Apr 2011 08:49:12 -0700

The architecture of a software-intensive system is best reasoned about through multiple, nearly independent views. Here Grady examines Kruchten's 4+1 model view in a new light. Copyright 2011, IEEE, Inc. All rights reserved.

27. On Architecture: An Architectural Oxymoron

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:30:32 -0800

To some, the phrase "agile architecture" is an oxymoron. Grady explores why we view the meaning behind the phrase to be a very good idea, helping a team attend to building the right software at the right time with the right amount of resources. Copyright 2010, IEEE, Inc. All rights reserved.

26. On Architecture: Systems Architecture

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 07:52:24 -0800

All complex systems fail, by some measure of the word "fail," with consequences ranging from benign to catastrophic. Grady examines the process of to triage in the face of a failing system. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2010.107

25. On Architecture: Architecture Reviews

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 10:39:40 -0700

An architectural review serves several purposes: to gain confidence in the design, to reason about alternatives, to attend to architectural rot. The process of such a review involves the interplay of design decisions, scenarios, and forces on the system. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2010.68

24. On Architecture: Enterprise Architecture and Technical Architecture

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:27:14 -0700

Enterprise architecture and technical architecture are related yet different: whereas EA focuses on the architecture of a business that uses software-intensive systems, TA focuses on the architecture of the software-intensive systems that are used by a business to makes its mission manifest. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2010.42

23. On Architecture: Architecture as a Shared Hallucination

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 16:03:01 -0700

Architecture is just a collective hunch, a shared hallucination, an assertion by a set of stakeholders on the nature of their observable world, be it a world that is or a world as they wish it to be. This article examines the technical and social factors that give rise to the value of architecture-as-artifact. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2010.4

22. On Architecture: Software Abundance in the Face of Economic Scarcity, Part 2

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:02:29 -0800

Software-intensive systems are an inescapable and necessary element in helping us operate, innovate, and even thrive in the face of lean economic times. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2009.187

21. On Architecture: Software Abundance in the Face of Economic Scarcity, Part 1

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:27:41 -0800

20. On Architecture: The Defenestration of Superfluous Architectural Accoutrements

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:17:38 -0700

Simple architectures have conceptual integrity and are better than more complex ones. Continuous architectural refactoring helps to converge a system to its practical and optimal simplicity. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2009.105

19. On Architecture: Like a River

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:52:16 -0700

The metaphor of software development as building construction is an old one. Here is a fresh perspective, considering the life cycle of a software-intensive system as a river. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2009.74

18. On Architecture: The Resting Place of Innovation

Tue, 2 Jun 2009 14:55:25 -0700

Grady discusses software-intensive systems and why innovation must proceed simultaneously at many levels to ensure system vibrancy and relevance. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2009.53

17. On Architecture: Not With a Bang

Tue, 19 May 2009 11:22:38 -0700

Grady talks about two patterns and one antipattern that can help architects address the systemic issues that, left unattended, may lead to the collapse of software-intensive systems. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2009.18

16. On Architecture: Back to the Future

Wed, 6 May 2009 15:10:35 -0700

Grady talks about why we’ve made advances in software design, and why it still requires careful thought. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2008.144

15. On Architecture: Nine Things You Can Do with Old Software

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 10:14:26 -0700

Grady gives suggestions on what to do with legacy software. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2008.139

14. On Architecture: Measuring Architectural Complexity

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:17:10 -0700

Grady discusses complex software-intensive systems and how they become increasingly irregular and chaotic over time. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2008.91

13. On Architecture: Architectural Organizational Patterns

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 16:48:39 -0700

Grady discusses how a software development organization can preserve its stories in a system's written architecture and make evolving that system materially easier. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2008.52

12. On Architecture: Tribal Memory

Tue, 3 Mar 2009 18:28:56 -0800

11. On Architecture: Morality and the Software Architect

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:18:35 -0800

Should software architects have a professional code of ethics? There is a moral dimension to developing software, another force to consider when engineering a reasonably optimal software-intensive solution. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2008.13

10. On Architecture: Artifacts and Process

Wed, 4 Feb 2009 08:42:26 -0800

Grady’s comparison of building architecture and software architecture reveals the differences, congruences, and commonalities between the two. There are differences in cost estimation, but there are similarities in divisions of labor or knowledge, degrees of formality, and the use of different viewpoints, use cases, an incremental design, and a particular style. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2007.159

9. On Architecture: The Economics of Architecture-First

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:57:54 -0800

The architect, either as an individual, a role, or a team, lovingly crafts, grows, and governs that architecture as it emerges from the thousands of individual design decisions of which it's composed. Grady discusses how an architecture-first approach appears to be a reflection of sound development practices. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2007.146

8. On Architecture: The Well-Tempered Architecture

Tue, 6 Jan 2009 17:14:19 -0800

Virtually all well-structured music, music that pleases the ear and moves the spirit, is full of patterns. By comparing musical and software patterns, Grady helps clarify the purposes and forms of patterns. Architectural and design patterns make software-intensive systems easier to understand and adapt to because of their regularity and simplicity. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2007.122

7. On Architecture: The Irrelevance of Architecture

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:35:06 -0800

Grady discusses the architecture of a software-intensive system and its irrelevance to its end users. He says that as long as a system provides the right answers at the right time with all the right other "-ilities" (maintainability, dependability, changeability, and so on), end users couldn't care less about what's behind the curtain making things work. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2007.93

6. On Architecture: Speaking Truth to Power

Mon, 1 Dec 2008 14:43:57 -0800

During an architectural assessment, Booch says, it's important to be truthful as well as gentle. He describes a few pitfalls, promises, complexities, and contradictions he's come across. He also notes the development organization's unique task--to address all the essential concerns of all the important stakeholders and avoid being blindsided by unexpected problems and stakeholders. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2007.53

5. On Architecture: It Is What It Is Because It Was What It Was

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 12:39:52 -0800

Software systems usually have the same basic architectural pattern as their earlier incarnations, manifesting in decreasingly refined forms as we move back in time. Similarly, when a new problem confronts us, we try many different approaches, but over time, for the same kind of problem, solutions tend to converge to the same, more constrained, solution space. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2007.19

4. On Architecture: Goodness of Fit

Tue, 4 Nov 2008 16:23:46 -0800

After a wide-ranging conversation with John Backus, Grady concludes that, for a given domain, even across the decades, forces are at play that are best resolved by a common architectural pattern that allows variants. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2006.162

3. On Architecture: From Small to Gargantuan

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:09:17 -0700

Grady discusses the different forces at work that act to make systems so complex. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2006.102

2. On Architecture: The Accidental Architecture

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 08:07:06 -0700

Grady discusses the differences between intentional and accidental architecture. Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2006.86

1. On Architecture

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:56:00 -0700

Grady's inaugural column discusses the growth of software architecture and his Handbook of Software Architecture.Article link: http://doi.ieeecomputersociety.org/10.1109/MS.2006.52