4. Understanding Quality Attributes

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

—Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

As we have seen in the Architecture Influence Cycle (in Chapter 3), many factors determine the qualities that must be provided for in a system’s architecture. These qualities go beyond functionality, which is the basic statement of the system’s capabilities, services, and behavior. Although functionality and other qualities are closely related, as you will see, functionality often takes the front seat in the development scheme. This preference is shortsighted, however. Systems are frequently redesigned not because they ...

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