Mark Richards (2)

Software architects guide development teams during projects from design to completion. It’s a notoriously nebulous field where the only goal is to build successful software… whatever that means and whatever that takes. Like any ill-defined field, getting from point A to point B requires skill and wisdom. That skill and wisdom evolves over time as the field evolves. Mark Richards and Neal Ford attempt to provide a guide to being a software architect without tying their approach too show more closely to any one technology.

The authors succeed in their goal of writing for the general audience of software designers, regardless of programing language; however, they fail to meet their audience at the same time because they are highly wedded to the design of microservices, their expertise. A lot of complex software development today doesn’t use microservices, and this book contains a lot of material that is only tangentially relevant to that crowd. Their work sees software through the lens of microservices versus monoliths, and in my experience, that contrast simply isn’t foundational to many developers.

Of course, we’re all biased towards our own areas, but the authors could have investigated this topic with a more scholarly approach that balanced other paradigms. The final sections on the interpersonal aspects of a software architect’s work life are helpful. I’d suggest that they’d serve as a better unifying theme to the topic and should be covered first. Then perhaps the authors could convey what architecture patterns exist in different development domains like web development, microservices, embedded systems, etc. The world of software is exploding with diverse approaches to a wide array of problems, and I’m still looking for a good book on software architecture to unite them. This book, while certainly solid, is more of a specialist’s guide to microservices than a grand tutorial. show less

The serious work requires quite a lot of time for digesting. I have read the second edition. Author focuses on microservises as one of more prevailing architecture conceptions, also micro-kernel, scoping/granular styles and much more. Especially I liked many considerations concerning entangled, vague, controversial situations those happen between business and development, developers and architects, requirements and implementation.

This book is a very succinct overview of software architecture patterns, maybe a bit too reliant on currently available frameworks and on business applications

A decent introduction to JMS, although it is a bit dated. While the JMS API hasn't changed that much, this book does miss the recent changes to JMS (e.g. JCA). Further, its chapter on JMS providers reads like a history book and can be ignored by hopeful JMS coders. The first few chapters introduce enterprise messaging service vocabulary, concepts, and heuristics. It does a decent job. The balance of the book leans on example applications for the advanced topics. While these examples are show more useful, many of the important points and concepts are wedged in between code snipplets, so are easy to miss; a summary of the important conceptional points at the beginning or end of the chapter would be more useful. A good introduction to JMS, but very close to being expired. show less