Hitchhiker's Guide to Software Architecture and Everything Else - by Michael Stal

Friday, November 06, 2009

Sick Architecture

You may wonder why my publication rate in this blog has decreased dramatically. I am staying at home due to an infection for three weeks now which wasn’t that helpful for my blog.

To keep things running I have decided to create a new posting. Well, the title is intentionally related to my current health situation.

To be honest, I think that software architecture design reveals some interesting commonalities with sickness:

  • Both often require intense treatment by experts
  • Different experts offer different opinions and treatment plans
  • Both are typically open-ended to some extent
  • Both are not subject to planning in most situations
  • Both mostly feel very miserable
  • To reduce the risk of getting infected some kind of prevention strategy is always a good advise
  • It is better to cure the cause not the symptoms. Thus, be aware of all interdependencies and follow a holistic approach
  • Viruses are a problem in both worlds
  • Healthcare never ends – it is important in the whole lifecyle
  • Learning from failure is recommended to avoid similar problems in the future
  • Prevention is always better  (i.e, cheaper) than healing

Most software architectures I know are not in a good and healthy shape - at least in some intermediate phases. Why? Because they were not devleoped with the aforementioned bullet list in mind.  Thus, health monitoring (i.e, reviews) and treatments (i.e., refactoring) should be an essential tool in the architect’s framework.

Does this sound reasonable?

2 Comments:

  • Thanks For posting .Very Nice .Keep up date a more article

    With regards
    esmartx

    By Blogger marry, at 10:01 AM  

  • I loved your blog on the "sick" architecture. I just finished taking antibiotics myself, I had an "inner" connections to the points you made and it was really spot on. I had a little time to think about it so I added a few points I thought of for your amusement:

    1. It is preferred to have periodic exams rather than treating when the problem comes up to the surface.
    2. The younger you are the faster you recover from surgery
    Constant changes (climate for humans and requirements for architecture) usually have negative impact on health.
    3. You don’t have to see the expert every time you sneeze but if you let its go for too long things can get complicated
    4. Sometimes when it hurts it might be too late for a surgery
    5. For Architecture and health, when you are overmedicate the results could be fatal

    By Blogger Unknown, at 5:57 AM  

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