Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice

Chapter 1. The Big Idea

The study of software architecture is the study of how software systems are designed and built. A system's architecture is the set of principal design decisions made during its development and any subsequent evolution. As a subject, architecture is the proper primary focus of software engineering, for the production of high-quality, successful products is dependent upon those principal decisions.

An architecture-centric approach to software development places an emphasis on design that pervades the activity from the very beginning. Design quality correlates well with software quality—it would be extremely unusual to find a high-quality software system with a poor design. The practice of architecture-centric development can also enable the creation of cost-effective families of software products that can dominate an application sector over an extended period of time. Good design practices can leverage the lessons of experience and provide strategies for effectively meeting a wide range of needs.

This chapter introduces the central ideas of software architecture. It does so by first exploring the analogy between the architecture of buildings and the architecture of software. Software architecture, and the power that comes from making it the centerpiece of system development, is then illustrated three ways. First, the architectural ideas underpinning the World Wide Web are explored—software architecture "in the very large." Second, the ideas are explored on the ...