Software Architecture: Organizational Principles and Patterns

Excellent summary of the relationship between architecture and organization. This will be a hot topic as organizations recover from attempts to do without serious architecture. The VRAPS organizational principles presented are a minimal set of dymanically related principles needed to understand the architecture building capabilities of an organization.

Not quite sure what to expect when I started the book, I was pleasantly surprised. The book explores 5 principles behind Software Architecture; namely Vision, Rhythm, Anticipation, Partnering, and Simplification; or VRAPS for short. Not only will you learn these principles, but you'll get an introduction to patterns and antipatterns as well. Yet it is not a "How To" on Software Architecture.Much of the book is devoted to VRAPS. After a few introductory chapters, each principle is defined, explained, and then illuminated with criteria, antipatterns and patterns.Chapter 8 introduces a case study, based upon a well known Internet company. Allaire's jouney through each principle is discussed, including successful practices and warning signs.Chapter 9 is added for completeness. It presents a case study about building and implementing a benchmark framework for VRAPS. The authors surveyed many organisations in compiling this book, and their results are published here in a summary form.The book is rounded off with useful Appendixes. One provides a quick reference principles, criteria, antipatterns and patterns, the other is an index of patterns and antipatterns cross-referenced to principles. Overall I found the book to be well structured and well organised - and not too hard too read.This is the third book I've read from the Software Architecture Series, and the most practical and useful so far. This book should go far in establishing a basic process for Software Architecture that is both theoretical and practical.

Anyone who is caught up in the real world of software development knows that most books on the subject talk about what should happen and not so much what could and most likely will happen. That is, real people work in real organizations and, for example, dependencies between groups of people can slow things down or in other ways hamper the development progress. Dikel, et al, do a great job defining patterns and anti-patterns and their overiding principles. This book is a great guide for software development Project Managers who could use guidance when planning a project and when the going gets rough.

*Software Architecture: Organizational Principles and Patterns* is an important read both for architects and their managers. It is a very readable, even entertaining, discussion of the interplay between a technical architecture, the organization responsible for it, and the processes used to develop and maintain it.While there are a number of good books on the technical aspects of developing, documenting, evaluating, and using architectures, this book by Dikel, Kane and Wilson is one of the few that offers insight into how technically superior architectures can fail, inferior architectures can succeed, and even the best architectures can deteriorate if not properly managed.The principles and patterns described in the book derive from several case studies, two of which are reported in the book. A third case study, in which the principles were originally described, was published separately as "Applying Software Product-line Architecture," IEEE Computer, August, 1997. The authors of this original study, which included Dikel, Kane, Wilson, Bill Loftus and myself, developed the principles in an effort to predict the success or failure of software architectures for large telecommunications systems.A good companion read is Grady Booch's *Object Solutions : Managing the Object-Oriented Project*,Addison-Wesley, 1995.For more about me see my web site, www.gbc-group.com

From reviewers ..."The three authors do a good job of highlighting the dual aspect of the architect's job: handling social as well as technical complexity. They connect the architect's technical activity to surrounding social issues that can easily derail it, making good use of both patterns and antipatterns to structure their advice." -Alistair Cockburn, Humans and Technology, and author of Surviving Object-Oriented Projects"Dikel, Kane and Wilson have written at once a great tool book for the practitioner wishing to improve software product development, and a guide for the executive charged with managing complex software engineering activity. The authors spell-out five principles - Vision, Rhythm, Anticipation, Partnering and Simplification - that form the conceptually rich yet immediately useful and important VRAPS model. As a software architect and advisor working with fast-moving Internet startups, this book gives me much essential grist for making architecture-based software development successful.." -Jeff Barr, President, Vertex Development