Thinking Architecturally

Chapter 4. Evaluating and Choosing Technologies

Without doubt, at some point you will have to evaluate and choose between technologies. You could just throw a dart at the wall or trust your gut but in the long (and short) term it is far better to follow a more objective approach. This chapter will explore what it takes to evaluate a new technology with a set of criteria you can use on your next assessment. It also includes a case study that uses this technique to compare Angular and React.

Evaluation Criteria

There are any number of things we can use as evaluation criteria. Depending on what kind of technology you are exploring, some will make more sense than others. Ultimately you will be guided by your own experience as well as the things that matter most to your organization. The following are a set of criteria I typically use when evaluating a new technology:

Documentation

Is there any? The era of “the code is the documentation” is over. Is the documentation clear and concise? Is it up to date? Is there enough to get you started as well as enough to keep you going? What you need from the documentation will change dramatically from week two to year two.

Community

What is the size of the community behind this technology? More importantly, is it thriving? A small but passionate community may be better than a large apathetic one. Does the community welcome new members or does it prefer to make them feel inferior for the first few years? What does the community value? Some ...