Software architecture and coding are often seen as mutually exclusive disciplines, despite us referring to higher level abstractions when we talk about our software. You’ve probably heard others on your team talking about components, services and layers rather than objects when they’re having discussions. Take a look at the codebase though. Can you clearly see these abstractions or does the code reflect some other structure? If so, why is there no clear mapping between the architecture and the code? Why do those architecture diagrams that you have on the wall say one thing whereas your code says another? In fact, why is it so hard to automatically generate a decent architecture diagram from an existing codebase? Join us to explore this topic further.
Simon is an independent software development consultant specialising in software architecture; specifically technical leadership, communication and lightweight, pragmatic approaches to software architecture. He is the author of two books about software architecture; Software Architecture for Developers (a developer-friendly guide to software architecture, technical leadership and the balance with agility) and The Art of Visualising Software Architecture (a guide to communicating software architecture with sketches, diagrams and models). I’m also the creator of the C4 software architecture model and Structurizr, a web-based tool to create software architecture diagrams.