Software Architect Bootcamp (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Thomas J. Mowbray (Author), Raphael Malveau (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0131412272 | ISBN-13: 978-0131412279 | Publication Date: December 20, 2003 | Edition: 2

Hands-on exercises, real-life war stories, and a take-no-prisoners attitude madethe first edition of this book among the most popular software architecturebooks in the market. This timely second edition retains those popularcharacteristics, with added treatment to reflect the latest trends anddevelopments in the world of software development. Software architecturecontinues to grow as a discipline as more and more development organizationshave recognized that solid architecture begets successful projects. This newedition is ideal for software professionals who want to learn how to be asuccessful software architect. The authors teach you how to avoid timeconsumingpitfalls and costly errors through a solid architecture strategy.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Preface

Software architecture is an emerging discipline and an exciting career path for software professionals. We encourage both new and experienced practitioners to read this book as an aid to becoming better software architects. You may have noticed that most software books today do not say much about software architecture. Here, in this volume, we've concentrated the knowledge that you need to be the most effective architect possible.

As co-authors, we have lived through the experience of graduating from "member of technical staff" developers to becoming practicing software architects at the most senior levels of our respective companies. We are technical people, not managers, and we enjoy the technical nature of our work. We enjoy parity of salary and benefits with the senior managers at our respective firms. In other words, we are none-the-worse-for-wear as a consequence of choosing a software architecture career. We think that many of our readers would like to gain from our experience. Hence this book.

This is more than a book about software architecture. It is a field manual that can train you. We choose the pseudomilitary style, because it embodies an essential attitude. As a software architect, you need many survival skills—some technical, some political, some personal. While neither author has military experience, we have seen software architecture become a battleground in many ways. It is a battleground of ideas, as developers compete to forward their own comcepts. It is a battle ground for control of key design decisions that may be overruled by managers or developers, perhaps covertly. It is a battleground with many risks, since architects are responsible for a much wider range of technical and process risks than most managers or individual developers.

If you are a practicing software architect, we know that you are a busy professional. After buying this book, we would suggest that you peruse the table of contents and the index for topics that are new to you. Focus on those sections first. When you have time, we suggest that you attempt a cover-to-cover read-through, to familiarize yourself with all of the covered topics and terminology.

If you are new to architecture and want to become a software architect, we suggest that you do a cover-to-cover read-through beginning with the first chapter. Work the exercises provided, which will add an experiential learning element to your experience base.Raphael Malveau
Thomas J. Mowbray, Ph.D.
McLean, Virginia, U.S.A. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Back Cover

The completely updated "field manual" for becoming a better software architect!

The crucial skills you need to survive and thrive as an enterprise software architect! Fully updated for the latest techniques-from lightweight methods and architectural layers to Model-Driven Architecture and UML 2.0!

In this book, Raphael Malveau and Thomas J. Mowbray share up-to-the-minute insights and practical solutions for all the key challenges of building enterprise software systems with objects, components, and Internet technologies. You'll master today's best technical and business practices for the entire project lifecycle as you discover how to avoid crucial pitfalls and costly errors. Coverage includes:

• Choosing the right architectural model for your project
• Executing heavyweight and lightweight approaches to software architecture
• Understanding the architectural issues associated with open source development
• Managing complexity, scalability, reliability, security, latency, and flexibility
• Making the most of abstraction, refactoring, and architectural prototyping
• Leveraging proven design patterns and anti-patterns
• Effective prototyping, business-case development, and project leadership
• Coordinating smoothly with project managers and teams
• Managing your own career as a software architect

With hands-on exercises, real-life war stories, and a take-no-prisoners attitude, Software Architect Bootcamp, Second Edition, won't just help you become a great software architect: it'll help you become a true technical leader of your organization.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 2 edition (December 20, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131412272
• ISBN-13: 978-0131412279
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #227,294 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Game of Two Halves, March 18, 2001

By 

A. K. Johnston "(www.andrewj.com/books)" (LEATHERHEAD United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Software Architect Bootcamp (Paperback)

Like the famous description of soccer, this book is very much a "game of two halves". Half the book, maybe more, discusses the role of a software architect - the architect's approach, attitude, responsibilities, processes and techniques. This is excellent: clear and concise, encouraging if you are a newcomer but still stimulating if you are a more seasoned architect. It is without doubt one of the best descriptions I have read.

Unfortunately, the other half of the book is less useful. The technical parts are either too simplistic, or too detailed when discussing a particular solution favoured by the authors. The text frequently tends to become a repetitive and thinly-disguised commercial for CORBA, and there is an obsession with standards such as RM-ODP which are simply not relevant to a great many commercial developers. The few examples are very simplistic, with no real discussion of many of the technical issues which a real architecture must address.

The book would have been much better for more care in its editing and presentation. The quality of proof-reading is in general poor, but becomes quite appalling in some of the technical sections - evidence perhaps that the authors allowed their technical stance to dictate a poor choice of word processor. The choice of diagrams seems random: some are good, but some difficult discussions cry out for a diagram (horizontal and vertical partitioning, for example), while in other places a diagram confuses where the text is clear. The reference list is incomplete, omitting even the authors' "primary" reference which is quoted, frequently, in the text. All this is doubly disappointing when you consider that one of the authors is the series editor, and both were co-authors of the excellent "AntiPatterns" book.

My advice: if you are happy with the technological side of software architecture, and want advice on how to be a better architect, then buy this book, but read chapters 5 through 9 before you even attempt to read the first part. If, however, you are seeking technical guidance in the real world of software from Microsoft, Oracle and a host of legacy systems, then look elsewhere.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven presentation masks a uniquely valuable book, December 7, 2000

By 

Alastair Dallas - See all my reviews

This review is from: Software Architect Bootcamp (Paperback)

I couldn't resist this book. Parts of it represent a clear-eyed, cards on the table look at the Software Architect job title. The introduction begins well, for example, explaining that software architects are politicians, technologists, authors, evangelists, and mentors. The description of a "marketing architecture" suitable only for PowerPoint slides is dead-on. But by page 16, the book lapses into a religious discussion of RM-ODP, Zachman Frameworks and the "horizontal-vertical-metadata" pattern, flinging information around for no discernable purpose.

But this is the first book of its kind, in my experience. Buried within are some extremely practical nuggets and an overall useful treatise on what it means to be an architect that serve to remind those of us with that title on our resumes to take pride in our work. Later chapters cover topics such as "Architecture vs. Programming," "Leadership Training," "Communications Training," "Architecture Mining," and a concluding chapter on "Psychological Warfare"--techniques for building and selling the perception that a given architecture represents the correct future course of a large organization. (I can't help but feel that one of the two authors was dumping in raw data while the other contributed insightful gems--I blame the apparent lack of an editor for the uneven result.)

Prentice Hall used to have higher quality standards. For this price, I was shocked to see so many typos, such as this from page 33: "...also we are adding some dynamic architecture elements represented metadata." In most cases, the meaning can be inferred, but here--perhaps the meaning is that the book had little or no copyediting.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Poorly edited but lives up to title, August 9, 2001

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Software Architect Bootcamp (Paperback)

The title of this book is appropriate because bootcamp is an intense indoctrination of fundamental skills and discipline. Bootcamp prepares recruits for the real world in which they are further trained in a specialty and become part of a team that has a shared mission.

In the case of software architecture, this book's approach to bootcamp is narrow in that it focuses on component-based architecture instead of a more general and encompassing treatment of this aspect of software engineering. Despite the narrow focus, this book covers some important fundamentals that will serve the new or aspiring architect well in his or her career path or job.

What I like most about the book is that it's independent of vendors and products. The foundation is, instead, based on standards and methods that are important to the discipline of software engineering in the component-based development domain. An excellent example is RM-ODP (Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing), which allows you to decompose an architecture into viewpoints to examine specific dimensions of requirements. Even if you do not adopt RM-ODP, the paradigm is a great foundation for architecture. Moreover, the Unified Modeling Language (UML)is placed into context with respect to architecture. Finally, although I personally believe CORBA has some problems, the mechanics and concepts are solid foundation material for understanding object request broker infrastructure as one building block of an architecture.

There are some things I do not like about the book. The oscillations between high- and low-level details are akin to a roller coaster and it's disorienting to a reader who is intent on learning the basics of architecture. The lack of good editing makes the book read like a patchwork instead of an "intense indoctrination."

Editing and writing problems notwithstanding, this book is a worthwhile (if ponderous) resource on an important aspect of software architecture for the new practitioner. Although the focus is on component-based development, the fundamentals can be extended into a more general view of architecture that will prepare the architect for his or her specialization in the real world.