Design It!

Test the Design

Test early, test often. This idea is as true for code as it is for architecture. Even when the architecture is only in its infancy, before we’ve written any code, there’s always something we can test.

There are three things we’ll need to evaluate an architecture. First, we need an artifact, a tangible representation of the design. Next, we need a rubric, a definition for better or worse from the stakeholders’ perspective. Finally, we need a plan for helping reviewers generate insights so they can form an opinion about the goodness of the architecture.

Make Something to Evaluate

Before we can evaluate anything, we need to have something to evaluate. We can evaluate real things, not ideas. We need to prepare a tangible artifact ...