Preface

Software architecture is a broad topic and there is not one single definition of it. In this book, I will try to share my experience in the field, with various customers within different industries. I will take a pragmatic approach to fulfill this book's tagline: Talk and act like a software architect in a weekend. That's all it takes to grasp most concepts and to get started. Of course, you will need to look more deeply into some topics on your own, and this might take a little longer than a weekend. The book will take you on a software architecture journey as practiced in the real world: no fluff and actionable reading.

Who this book is for

This book is for developers who wish to move up the organizational ladder to become software architects. It will help them understand the broader application landscape and how large enterprises deal with software architecture practices. Prior knowledge of software development is required to get the most out of this book.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing Software Architecture, introduces software architecture and how it is reflected in the real world.

Chapter 2, Exploring Architecture Frameworks and Methodologies, analyzes further the frameworks that we briefly introduced in the previous chapter, through actionable examples.

Chapter 3, Understanding ATAM and the Software Quality Attributes, introduces ATAM, a methodology that you can use to find the most suitable architecture for software.

Chapter 4, Reviewing the Historical Architectural Styles, revisits the history of monoliths, service-oriented architecture, and microservices. It's important to know what has happened over the past decade because architects often need to refactor/migrate existing solutions.

Chapter 5, Design Patterns and Clean Architecture, explores software development patterns and the latest trends with regard to structuring and designing applications.

Chapter 6, Impact of the Cloud on the Software Architecture Practices, walks you through the most important aspects to grasp when dealing with the cloud and cloud-native applications.

Chapter 7, Architectural Trends and Global Summary, focuses on the most in-demand software architectures and summarizes what we have learned in this book.

To get the most out of this book

Prior knowledge of software development is expected to have the best reading experience. Since the software architecture topic itself is technology-agnostic, you do not need language-specific skills nor language-specific tools. However, for the sake of demonstration, some examples are based on .NET, Azure, and Kubernetes. If you want to reproduce them in your own environment, you will need the following:

Rest assured that you will be able to fully grasp the concepts discussed in this book even if you decide not to replay the examples by yourself.

If you are using the digital version of this book, we advise you to type the code yourself or access the code from the book's GitHub repository (a link is available in the next section). Doing so will help you avoid any potential errors related to the copying and pasting of code.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Software-Architecture-for-Busy-Developers. If there's an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801071598_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Let's say that we have a Rectangle base class with two separate SetWitdh and SetHeight methods."

A block of code is set as follows:

Rectangle rect = new Square();
rect.setWidth(10);
rect.setHeight(5);
Assert.Equal(50, CalculateArea(rect));

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: "I defined the MessageBroker as an ABB, and the three rectangles on the right are solutions that fulfil this need."

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

Feedback from our readers is always welcome.

General feedback: If you have questions about any aspect of this book, email us at [e-mail] and mention the book title in the subject of your message.

Errata: Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you have found a mistake in this book, we would be grateful if you would report this to us. Please visit www.packtpub.com/support/errata and fill in the form.

Piracy: If you come across any illegal copies of our works in any form on the internet, we would be grateful if you would provide us with the location address or website name. Please contact us at [e-mail] with a link to the material.

If you are interested in becoming an author: If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, please visit authors.packtpub.com.

Share Your Thoughts

Once you've read Software Architecture for Busy Developers, we'd love to hear your thoughts! Please click here to go straight to the Amazon review page for this book and share your feedback.

Your review is important to us and the tech community and will help us make sure we're delivering excellent quality content.