Making Sense of Architecture Choices in 2008

·        What Forces Will Drive Today’s Design Decisions?

·        How will Architecture Choices Impact Development Teams?

New Platforms and old Patterns

There are three pairs of related forces influencing application design in the implementation sphere today. The pairs aren’t exactly opposites; they are the limits of a continuum or, simply, two ends of the same stick.

• ·         Patterns vs. Code Abstractions (anything from stack-frames to state machines)

• ·         Frameworks vs. Accreted Code (the normal run of unfinished custom-code initiatives)

• ·         OOD vs. IOC, MVC

These questions need new answers:

• ·         What does an Architectural decision consist of today?

• ·         What are correct designs from the perspective of Management and Business?

• ·         How do these decisions impact the team-based development processes?

Kimball Johnson is a Software Engineer, Analyst and Architect with speakTECH.

Initially a student of Philosophy at Berkeley, Kimball spent 10 years in the fields of Civil Engineering and Architecture. Following the trail of computerization he consulted on Critical Path and Accounting software for those industries until moving into the world of Corporate Networking and Computer Services. Since 1996, Kimball has been an application developer and architect working primarily with Microsoft Platforms.