Rhino Research

I am currently writing a book on software architecture. I have signed a contract with Alan Apt at Taylor and Francis. Progress so far is good and I will be delivering it to the publisher at the beginning of 2010. I’m told that it will take about six months before it reaches bookstore shelves and Amazon.

The primary contribution of this book is to consolidate software architecture techniques found in a variety of other sources, integrating both techniques emphasizing on quality attributes as well as ones emphasizing functionality. It also shows how architecture is sufficiently lightweight to work within an agile or iterative process. Developers can use risk to mediate how much architecture and design is needed, and thereby avoid both Big Design Up Front and analysis paralysis.

Readers of the book can expect three things:

1. They will have a mental framework of software architecture and how it can be used to combat complexity and scale. Software architecture abstractions will be in their heads so that when they look at systems it will be easier to see how and why the pieces fit together.
2. They will know a set of interconnected software design and modeling techniques. They will be able to choose appropriate techniques that address risks faced on their projects.
3. They will have expert software architecture knowledge, including a catalog of architecture styles, a set of standard relationships between models, and a set of component decomposition strategies.

You can download the current draft below by clicking on the appropriate chapter links below. The Frontmatter chapter has the table of contents and preface. As always, comments or questions on any of this would be appreciated.

-George

Updated 27 January 2010

If you are interested in the risk-centric approach to software architecture, you should take a look at the slides from the presentation. Presentation on Risk-Centric Model of Software Architecture from the joint IASA / Agile Denver meeting on 16 Nov 2009.