The Process of Software Architecting

Preface

Several years ago, the authors became aware of Grady Booch’s Handbook of Software Architecture initiative (www.handbookofsoftwarearchitecture.com). The purpose of Grady’s initiative is

To codify the architecture of a large collection of interesting software-intensive systems, presenting them in a manner that exposes their essential patterns and that permits comparisons across domains and architectural styles.

While Grady is focusing on the resulting architectures, we felt that it would be equally interesting to understand the processes that successful architects follow when creating their architectures. Our ultimate objective was, of course, to replicate their success. This journey has taken us several years to complete. Many projects ...