List
Abstract
One+Abstract
Musings on whether an architect can fit neatly anywhere in a traditional IT organisation hierarchy.
Author Archives: Andrew
Review: Business Modelling with UML
Business Patterns at Work, By Hans-Erik Eriksson and Magnus Penker
13 August 2003 - Please share: 
A very good guide to business-level modelling with UML
One of the weaknesses of the Unified Modelling Language is its relatively limited support for modelling at the Enterprise level, especially to accurately model business processes. The UML purists believe that everything should be reduced to Use Cases, while these authors recognise that much more is necessary.
Posted in Reviews
Leave a comment
Review: The Elements of UML Style
By Scott Ambler
13 July 2003 - Please share:
An excellent little "bible" for modellers
Like Strunk & White’s "The Elements of Style" for writers (which it flatters by imitation), or Edward Tufte’s "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" for statisticians, this book is destined to become a "bible" for those using the Unified Modelling Language.
Like those other books, it combines a sound set of standards for the experienced user with good guidance for those with less advanced skills. The focus is clearly on how to get the message across most efficiently and effectively, by understanding what you should leave out just as much as what you should include.
In just over 120 bite-sized pages Scott takes you through each of the main techniques in UML, identifying why you might want to use each one, how to draw the diagrams, how to construct names and descriptive text, with a number of clear "dos" and "don’ts" for each technique. It’s bang up to date, covering most of the new diagram types in UML 2.0 as well as the latest conventions for the more established diagram types. The writing and examples are concise, so that you can read much of the book at a single sitting, but always complete enough that you fully understand.
Posted in Reviews
Leave a comment
The Changing Role of An IT Architect
9 July 2003 - Please share:
An IT architect (for want of a generic term which isn’t already terribly overloaded) takes on many different roles over time. This article discusses some of those roles, and introduces a model for the different architectural interventions in a typical project life-cycle.
Characteristics of a Software Architect
9 July 2003 - Please share:
My musings on what makes a good software architect.
Technical Reference Architecture
7 June 2003 - Please share:
“Technical Reference Architecture for Component Based Development and Enterprise Application Integration” by Tim Barrett of ComCor IT Solutions BV is an excellent summary of the characteristics of a strong, flexible, layered and component-based architecture, and the different classes which comprise one. (Adobe Acrobat Format)
Posted in Agile & Architecture
Leave a comment
Review: Adobe Photoshop Elements
A Visual Introduction to Digital Imaging, By Philip Andrews
28 April 2003 - Please share:
Beautifully produced, clear introductory book
If you’re new to digital imaging, and trying to get to grips with Photoshop Elements (or any of its relations including its big brother Photoshop) it’s often difficult to understand some of the concepts, and how all the different pieces fit together. If that describes your situation, this book is a very good place to start.
Posted in Reviews
Leave a comment
Review: Why Buildings Fall Down
By Matthys Levy and Mario Salvadori
20 April 2003 - Please share:
A clear and entertaining book
Such is our morbid fascination that this book is inevitably more attractive than one called “Why Buildings Stay Up”. That said, I think I have not only learned more about structural engineering than I would have done from a positive counterpart, but I have also learned vastly more about the other factors, human and natural, that influence the ultimate success or failure of structures.
Posted in Reviews
Leave a comment
The Tao of the Architect
2 March 2003 - Please share:
Philippe Kruchten of Rational has taken the Tao of Lao-Tsu, and created a modern translation focussed on the values and attitudes which an architect should adopt. He says many things which are also said on this site, but much more beautifully.
Articles on Agile Modeling and Architecture
2 March 2003 - Please share:
Here’s a list of useful articles by Scott Ambler on either the Agile Modeling or Agile Data web sites. A lot of that material is relevant, but I’ve picked out a few articles which are most relevant to the Agile Architect:
Posted in Agile & Architecture
Leave a comment
Review: Software Architecture Organizational Principles and Patterns
By David Dikel, David Kane & James Wilson
1 July 2002 - Please share:
An excellent book on how to make architectural changes work
This book is about how to make architectural changes across an organisation. It’s very much about the softer aspects of selling ideas, getting buy-in, and then seeing changes through. It has wider applicability than the title and very focused text might suggest: although it’s written in terms of "architecture", "architects" and "product lines" it could equally easily apply to "strategy", "strategists" and "portfolio".
This is a practical book, who’s authors have realised that software architecture is about people and processes, not standards or definitions. Maybe it reflects the growing maturity of the field, but this book gets down to the meat in a way that most earlier books didn’t. The book includes some useful material for any architect trying to sell his efforts, particularly real business examples where major businesses succeeded or failed because of the quality and timing of architectural investments.
Posted in Reviews
Leave a comment
Review: ASP.NET for Developers
By Micael Amundsen & Paul Litwin
24 June 2002 - Please share:
A Good Introduction
This book is a clear and well-written introduction to the latest version of Microsoft’s Active Server Pages. It is written how technical books should be written: no messing about, no unnecessary repetition, and a lot of material covered clearly in just over 400 pages. A clear target audience (experienced ASP and VB6 developers), and clear objectives help – the book’s intention is clearly to communicate the essentials, and the practitioner will then get more detail from other sources.
The book clearly presents the VB.NET language, the new ASP architecture, how to develop using server-side and user controls, and supporting technologies such as Web Services and ADO.NET. However, there are some omissions. For example, the book states that you can’t raise standard events from User Controls, not only is this possible, but the standard MSDN documentation has a very simple example of how to do so.
If I have a major complaint, it’s that the book was not developed around Visual Studio. Instead the examples are mainly pure text, similar to old server pages. This has two drawbacks: it fails to support the new paradigm of web development which Microsoft have finally raised above hacking with a copy of notepad; and it’s sometimes difficult to relate the text-only examples to code generated by the Visual Studio design tools, and vice-versa.
Another weakness is shared with many other books on web-based development, especially in the Microsoft arena, with very little focus on how to properly structure code and solution components. I have had to resort to Java-based architectural pattern books, and I think there’s a major gap in the market here.
This won’t be the only book you’ll buy on .NET: I also purchased "VB.NET for Developers" by Franklin, and "the Visual Basic Programmer’s
Guide to the .NET Framework Class Library" by Powers & Snell, both in the same series from Sams. However, I can recommend it as a good clear introduction to ASP.NET, which doesn’t require you to read thousands of pages.
Posted in Reviews
Leave a comment
Email me
Others
Thoughts on the World (Main Feed)
Main feed (direct XML)