Software Design

What is Software Architecture Software architecture refers to the fundamental structures of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. What is a Software Architect Some people compare the role of a software architect to that of a town planner. The town planner does not care how a house in a residential block is built. The town planner is responsible for deciding where blocks of residential properties go, think about the commercial complexes, the parks and schools or institutions, how they are laid to make the town easy to navigate and also making sure that essentials like water and electricity supply gets to where it is needed in the most efficient way. They do have to think about where the place would be to keep exits to highways, and if we might need flyovers, traffic signals, roundabouts, etc in certain parts based on how the population evolves. ...

When building applications, it is fundamental to think about design first. This process of designing first helps visualize some of the key areas that you are going to tackle. How are the different elements or components going to interact with one another? What are the various components going to be? What are the responsibilities of each of these components? Software Engineering is a pretty young field, compared to other engineering domains. And over the last 60 years or so, has made tremendous amount of progress. This has led to the rise of several different blueprints for solving common problems, often called design patterns or architectural patterns. These are great tools to use when developing your solution, provided you understand what they solve and when best to use them. ...

The problem A lot of software engineers get into the industry and often end up starting to write code soon after they read the requirements’ specification. Sounds familiar? You might have done it too. Hard to admit? Can be. We are humans, after all. Jumping right into the coding process might be a great idea for a simple coding challenge, where the objective is to solve a problem in as little time as possible, with potentially very few lines of code. You just have that very specific goal. You don’t have worry about future enhancements for that solution, nor do you have to think about maintainability of that solution. Once solved, the code might have to run through a set of tests and pass the criteria of the question. Fantastic! And you might even get selected for the next round of interviews! Great! So why think about design when you start working on a real solution? ...