Software Architecture in Practice, 4th Edition

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Why Is Software Architecture Important?

Ah, to build, to build!That is the noblest art of all the arts.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

If architecture is the answer, what was the question?

This chapter focuses on why architecture matters from a technical perspective. We will examine a baker’s dozen of the most important reasons. You can use these reasons to motivate the creation of a new architecture, or the analysis and evolution of an existing system’s architecture.

1. An architecture can either inhibit or enable a system’s driving quality attributes.

2. The decisions made in an architecture allow you to reason about and manage change as the system evolves.

3. The analysis of an architecture enables early prediction of a system’s qualities.

4. A documented ...