The Software Architect Elevator

Chapter 40. Thinking in Four Dimensions

More Degrees of Freedom Can Make Your Head Hurt

Stuck in two dimensions

A university class on coding theory taught us about spheres in an n-dimensional space. Though the math behind it made a good bit of sense (the spheres represent the “error radius” for encoding, while the space between the sphere is “waste” in the coding scheme), trying to visualize four-dimensional spheres can make your head hurt a good bit. However, thinking in more dimensions can be the key to transforming the way you think about your IT and your business.

Living Along a Line

IT architecture is a profession of trade-offs: flexibility brings complexity; decoupling increases latency; distributing components introduces communication overhead. The architect’s role is often to determine the “best” spot on such a continuum, based on experience and an understanding of the system context and requirements. A system’s architecture is essentially defined by the combination of trade-offs made across multiple continua.

Quality Versus Speed

When looking at development methods, one well-known trade-off is between quality and speed: if you have more time, you can achieve better quality because you have time to build things properly and to test more extensively to eliminate remaining defects. If you count how many times you have heard the argument “We would like to have a better ...