Surviving at the Software Industry (10) - It's time to become a well-dressed devil.

I know I should be comparing this chapter to something related with construction and things like that, but I can't think of any movie that can helps me on that genre, so today we'll be using The Devil Wears Prada. This one is a fun movie to watch and it comes on Fox almost once a week.

As software developers we are condemned to become software architects. And yeah, we do a lot of stuff that architecs do when they are planning on building a bridge. We have to treat some issues on the same ways.

If a client asks you to do something in specific and they have a delimited budget and you cannot achieve it.

The client wants to know how the project is going on any stage. They want to be informed.

We have to fix the problems as soon as possible or it will be more expensive on the future.

And we all love coffee with all our heart.

So we can talk about the main characteristics of a good architecture now. The system overview is describing everything in broad terms so we can have a general idea of the project. It has to happen on a high level discussion. The conceptual integrity phase is where the objectives for the architecture are stated. This ensures that the architecture covers all the problems of the project, whatever it is. Subsystems and Organization is when you star defining the areas or subsytems of a project. It can be divided on the major clusters of functionality, or major areas of the general system. Although it is good to have some communication you cannot have everyone knowing every single aspect of the project. Is not convenient. Imagine if an intern listened a brainstorm meeting for the next season!

We have to have our team on the same page. It is important to define a standard notation for our diagrams and to be sure that everyone is capable of reading them. We also have to be prepared for change. If we see that something's about to change we can start to making preparations and we won't suffer as much when the time comes. If we see the trend is changing, we have to be faster as designers or we won't be relevant. If the weather is changing we have to get out of that city or we won't be able to see our families on time.

Reusing code is not bad if it is useful and does not affect the architecture. We also have to question our approaches, see if what we are doing is the right thing or if there's a better / cheaper way to do it. Then, we have to define the traceability and the delivery plan so our client does not desesperate.

The architecture will be complete when you can say without any problem "My file covers all these areas, I feel confident we can work this out."