Fundamentals of Software Architecture

Chapter 18. Choosing the Appropriate Architecture Style

It depends! With all the choices available (and new ones arriving almost daily), we would like to tell you which one to use—but we cannot. Nothing is more contextual to a number of factors within an organization and what software it builds. Choosing an architecture style represents the culmination of analysis and thought about trade-offs for architecture characteristics, domain considerations, strategic goals, and a host of other things.

However contextual the decision is, some general advice exists around choosing an appropriate architecture style.

Shifting “Fashion” in Architecture

Preferred architecture styles shift over time, driven by a number of factors:

Observations from the past

New architecture styles generally arise from observations and pain points from past experiences. Architects have experience with systems in the past that influence their thoughts about future systems. Architects must rely on their past experience—it is that experience that allowed that person to become an architect in the first place. Often, new architecture designs reflect specific deficiencies from past architecture styles. For example, architects seriously rethought the implications of code reuse after building architectures that featured it and then realizing the negative trade-offs.

Changes in the ecosystem

Constant change is a reliable feature of the software development ecosystem—everything changes all the time. The change in our ...