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Beyond Software Architecture
Overview Beyond Software Architecture explains how to bridge the gap between the marketecture and tarchitecture- how to create a product that not only performs well, but which also appeals to the market. It is part of the Addison-Wesley Professional Series line of books (also containing notable titles like Design Patterns, Refactoring, and Patterns of Enterprise Architecture) but this latest installment in the series is (thankfully) paperback, so it comes at a paperback price ($39.99 USD).
I am a software developer with no marketing background who works in small development teams, usually in an open-source development atmosphere. I was excited to find this book because it told me what I need to consider for my projects to help them reach the intended user. There is a lot of helpful information in this book, and at times it almost seems to suggest more work than I can handle, but I think it will ultimately pay off to be able to use the knowledge gained.
Table of Contents Forwards by Martin Fowler and Guy Kawasaki
1. Software Architecture
2. Product Development Primer
3. The Difference between Marketecture and Tarchitecture
4. Business and License Model Symbiosis
5. Technology In-Licensing
6. Portability
7. Deployment Architecture
8. Integration and Extension
9. Brand and Brand Elements
10. Usability
11. Installation
12. Upgrade
13. Configuration
14. Logs
15. Release Management
16. Security
Appendix A. Release Checklist
Appendix B. A Pattern Language for Strategic Product Management
Organization by chapter: Chapters 1-3 set up the rest of the book, defining the scope of the book as well as concepts and key terms used throughout the book. They describe a product development cycle, the players involved, etc.
The remaining chapters each focus on a particular aspect of a software product and how it relates to both the customer and the product's architecture. Catalogs of alternatives are available for each topic along with caveats for each alternative.
For example, in Chapter 6, "Portability," the advantages and disadvantages of creating a portable application are discussed. If most of your customers are using Windows and your code is written in C++, then the cost of supporting Solaris as well may be the difference between a product's financial success and failure. The chapter reminds us that guaranteeing support for 6 operating systems and 4 database backends and 3 browsers means that we have to support and provide quality assurance for 6x4x3=72 combinations of products. Then it describes a process of eliminating or prioritizing combinations of platform support. The chapter goes on to describe ways in which a product's architecture can affect its portability and how best to write software to be portable.
Related to this is a discussion of how supporting particular platforms ties your release cycles into the release cycles of products you support-- another problem that can financially doom a project. Another point from Chapter 6 that I found interesting was what it means to support a platform-- the customer expects you to take advantage of the platform's features. Many cross-platform products are written to be identical on each platform they support, which means they probably ignore platform dependent libraries or features that can enhance performance or usability. This creates a potential place where competitors can gain an edge.
So you see each chapter goes into great length and detail to cover the nuances of its topic, and it is extensive enough that it can be overwhelming and even discouraging.
Who should read this book Anyone involved in software architecture or design, particularly project managers, whether in a very small group or a large corporate atmosphere. Open source developers are notoriously technically proficient, and often are not marketing-savvy. Oftentimes you have to be technically proficient to even install and use an open-source product. Ordinary developers who do not participate in architecture might benefit from reading this book in order to understand the decisions being made by the architects.
Why someone should read this book Many software industry professionals are not marketing experts and may even view the marketing department as their enemy. This book helps bridge that gap between marketing and project management, helping the two parties work together to create more effective, usable, or profitable software. Similarly, open-source developers usually architect and market their own software. Tactics described in this book could help OS developers create software that lasts longer, is more extensible, and more usable.
What this book is and is not. This is a general, and not technology-specific, guide to designing software and while doing so, keeping a marketing perspective in mind. It describes what things a software architect should remember when designing a product.
It is not a guide to marketing software. It does not recommend particular solutions for particular problems. It does not tell you what you should do, only what the consequences of your choices may be.
What I would like to see A similar book that concentrates on the open-source aspects of the topics included in this book and how and how not to use open source tools (like Freshmeat, Sourceforge, Bugzilla, CVS) for marketing and maintaining successful open-source projects.
Recommendation Buy this book if you have benefited from Design Patterns, Refactoring or Patterns of Enterprise Architecture. This book is a welcome addition to a line of books that has consistently contributed to the standard knowledge base of the software architecture discipline.
You can purchase Beyond Software Architecture from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Developers shouldn't care about the market. If you have a quality process in place with requirements that are reviewed by many disciplines (services, product management, etc) then they will modify the product to fit the market.
;)
If you don't have that well.. how much quality will you have anyway whether you get this book or not?
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Free your mind.
1) Sales/marketing talk to some clients, find out what they want.
2) Sales/marketing sign up clients for the beta.
3) Sales/marketing finally gets around to communicating to the dev team what they have promised the clients.
4) Sales/marketing blames the developers when they can't deliver what the client was promised.
This is actually not a joke. On one of that last projects I worked on, I was handed the "specification", which was basically a collection of photoshop mockups, and told that clients were going to be beta testing in 30 days....wheee!
The top down hand requirements to developers process is conceptually the same as the top down hand work orders to factory people process that GM used to produce many of its illconceived cars in the 1970s and 1980s.
Developers MUST know the marketplace because capturing all of the market knowledge into a requirements slows down business mobility too much to make it a worthwhile process.
Besides, if developers know the market they are in, then, they have an automatic value add over requirements only shops that work overseas!
This is my sig.
Web Economy Bullshit Generator
Too often I've been telling my friends in the software industry that when hiring into a software company, the primary thing a prospective employer should ask for is domain knowledge. ie, if you're looking to join Cisco's IOS team, you better have a pretty fundamental understanding of networking and routing. If you're joining an CRM software company, knowledge of CRM (at least a specialty like sales force automation) is the primary thing they will want. Even better is direct knowledge of the product/architecture itself. Programming experience is, of course, neccessary, but runs secondary to the actual domain knowledge.
C++, Java, etc.. don't matter as much these days because everyone knows them ... including those offshore programmers who are probably better and/or cheaper than you. Understanding and becoming an expert in a domain gives you a value add that a non-knowledgeable person can't match.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
> 3.5) Developers firmly tell sales/marketing no and why not, cc owner
Try it in a US corporate structure and your career will be stuck in mud forever. You will be penalised for lacking a "can do" attitude. Meanwhile some other twinkie will claim that everything is fine and promise delivery. Then they fail miserably. Now comes the weird part: The collosal failure of the twinkie will be immediately forgotten and he will be promoted, but your negative attitude will be remembered. Nobody is less popular than the guy who correctly anticipates failure. When it turns out you were right, somehow the PHBs will figure failure is your fault even if you are not involved at all.
In terms of what will help you climb the corporate ladder, these are your options in declining order:
1. Predict success and succeed
2. Predict success and fail
3. Predict failure and succeed
4. Predict failure and fail [or don't try]
Option 4 is a LONG way below option 2.
I am not recommending [2], just pointing out how things work. A better option is to get the hell out of that kind of environment.
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Smoke and mirrors. How stupid.
For example, Microsoft's "marketecture" is actually a lying-through-the-teeth-marketing department coupled with an unscrupulous aquire-and-crush department coupled with leadership that has a psychological deformity that makes them believe in world domination. Their "tarchitecture" are too-smart-for-their-own-good college graduates and a counter-intuitive culture of cut-n-paste and stock options.
In the "real world", which Microsoft is not a part of, there is no distinction between "marketecture" and "tarchitecure". Well designed software is genuinely useful, with a healthy set of features, a healthy user interface, and robustness. I believe I will call it, simply, "architecture." If this "architecture" does not truly fill the customers need, then capitalistic natural selection provides an honest solution.
You may claim that Microsoft has truly filled the needs of many people, but, upon closer inspection, this is not true. Many others have found ways to fill the same needs better, but, somehow, Microsoft skirted the laws of nature and invented their own microuniverse of delusion. I believe they will be short-lived in the grand scheme of things, where truly superior architectures will come in and make them obselete.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin