Relating System Quality and Software Architecture

Foreword by Bill Curtis: Managing Systems Qualities through Architecture

Dr. Bill Curtis, Senior vice president and chief scientist at CAST, Fort Worth, Texas

As I begin writing this foreword, computers at the NASDAQ stock exchange have been crashing all too frequently over the past several weeks. Airline reservation system glitches have grounded airlines numerous times over the past several years. My friends in Great Britain are wondering when their banks will next separate them from their money for days on end. These disruptions account for a tiny fraction of the financial mayhem that poor software quality is inflicting on society. With the software disasters at RBS and Knight Trading running between a quarter and a half billion dollars, ...