I presented my work on Architecture Hoisting last week in Atlanta. The big idea is that software often relies on global design constraints (guiderails) to achieve its qualities (e.g., reliability, security).

But you've really only got two options for ensuring those guiderails: (1) developer vigilance and (2) architecture hoisting. In the small (say inside of a data structure), using vigilance to keep an invariant is possible. In the large, architectural guiderails (self-imposed constraints that simplify the software) are much harder to ensure, as the recent remote exploit in Google Chrome (a use-after-free bug) illustrates.

The other option, architecture hoisting, has not been widely recognized so this talk gives it a clear definition, shows examples of it in use, and discusses its applicability and trade-offs.

Abstract: Software architecture focuses on quality attribute requirements, such as scalability or performance, that are overall properties of a system. This talk describes Architecture Hoisting, a a design technique where the architecture ensures an intensional design constraint (i.e., a guiderail) to achieve a global property. Discussed examples include the NASA JPL Mission Data System, Enterprise Java Beans, and the Apache Portable Runtime.

I will be in Atlanta giving a talk on Architecture Hoisting next week at the local IASA chapter. The topic of architecture hoisting is in my book but I’ve had several requests to dig into it further and this talk is the result. Here’s the talk abstract:

“Solve Problems by Hoisting Them into your Architecture”

Architecture hoisting is an established technique that has only recently been identified and named. It is suitable when you have a challenging design problem that requires consistency in the implementation.

A little while ago, several cases of my books were being shipped to Amazon by the US postal service but those cases went missing. The USPS claims to have never found them despite being well labeled and indeed having an Amazon packing list inside the box.

Fast forward to now and those books are showing up on Amazon and eBay. But all is not well! It seems they were sold by the USPS to scavengers who have put them up for sale.

Franco Martinig has another blog post about my book, this time on Muddy architecture.

Franco Martinig of Methods and Tools has reviewed my book. Review of Just Enough Software Architecture.

This talk that I delivered at AgileRoots 2010 was recently posted (or at least I recently learned it was posted). It's one of my favorite talks to deliver and the topic is important for all developers since writing code that expresses your design intent is hard but so very helpful for everyone who must read it later (including you!).

Abstract: Because of Eric Evans' Domain Driven Design, agile developers are familiar with embedding their domain models in their code, but architecture and design remain hard to see from the code. How can we improve that? This session presents a new agile technical practice, an architecturally-evident coding style, that lets you drop hints to code readers so that they can correctly infer the design and architecture. It builds upon ideas like Kent Beck's Intention Revealing Method Name pattern and provides a set of lightweight coding patterns and idioms that let you express your design intent in the code.

Last week was an exciting one as the CompArch/WICSA conference came to my hometown of Boulder. I was one of the conference chairs, the one in charge of the unglamorous task of organization, but the good news is that everyone was delighted by that! We had a great mix of folks from two different backgrounds and there was lots of mingling and ideas shared between them. The reception dinner at the Red Lion Inn on the Boulder Creek (swollen with snow melt runoff) was really great.

Second printing

As of right now, the book has seven 5-star reviews on Amazon.com. The demand for the book has been so strong that I’ve had to order a second printing! That should arrive within a month. I’m also going to be distributing the book to international bookstores including Amazon in the UK and Germany. There have been quite a few e-book sales there, so now they can get the hardback too.

Amazon Top-10

I just noticed that the book has nudged its way into the top-10 list for its category on Amazon (system analysis and design books). That makes me feel really good and I hope this helps it get better visibility.

There’s a new review of my book up on Amazon today. Here are some choice words:

• “Just Enough Software Architecture: A Risk-Driven Approach” is the book I will now be recommending to software developers who either have no architecture-level experience, or who need to get back to the basics of what software architecture is really all about.
• …for a cohesive treatment of software architecture, the goal of which is to start students and professionals on the right track, there are no other texts than can stand up to this one…

Thank you to all of you who have provided such kind words about the book. Yes, people really do read those reviews to decide what book to get!

I was interviewed in InfoQ by Srini Penchikala. My hope was to lay out the major themes of the book and build bridges to the Agile programming community. I’ve gotten a few supportive messages so I think people liked the interview overall.

Earlier, at the OOPSLA/SPLASH 2010 conference, I was interviewed by Kenji Hiranabe, whose company makes the best-selling UML tool in Japan. Here is part 1 and part 2 of the video interview.