Software Architecture in Practice, Third Edition

19. Architecture, Implementation, and Testing

You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.

—Shirley Hufstedler

Although this is a book about software architecture—you’ve noticed that by now, no doubt—we need to remind ourselves from time to time that architecture is not a goal unto itself, but only the means to an end. Building systems from the architecture is the end game, systems that have the qualities necessary to meet the concerns of their stakeholders.

This chapter covers two critical areas in system-building—implementation and testing—from the point of view of architecture. What is the relationship of architecture to implementation (and vice versa)? What is ...