Coding the Architecture - londonusergroup tag

London User Group - June 2008

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:48:00 GMT

Here are the details of the June London User Group.

Title : Themes from the Software Architect 2008 conference
Summary : Join us for a discussion of the themes from the recent Software Architect 2008 conference that took place in early June at the Barbican in London. We'll be summarising our view of the conference while looking at the recent trends on display, from both a technical and non-technical perspective.
Date : Monday, 16th June 2008
Time : 18:30-20:00 (after the training)
Location : Skills Matter, 1 Sekforde Street
Format : Presentation and discussion, with further discussion in a local pub (The Crown).
Cost : Free, but registration is required.

Many thanks to Skills Matter for sponsoring the user group.

London User Group - May 2008

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:30:52 GMT

Here are the details of the May London User Group.

Title : Building a high volume, low latency system in Java
Summary : This session will provide some insight into the architecture, design and development of a greenfield high volume, low latency trading and pricing system. Topics include :
- The architecture and design itself.
- How the early development of an executable reference architecture was used to help prove the low latency requirements.
- The structure of the team and how the architecture was shared between a team of architects.
- How mainstream technologies such as Java 5, Spring, JMS, and Oracle were used to successfully deliver a solution where other technologies like C++ might be the immediate first choice for low latency applications.
Speaker : Moudud Ahmed, Detica
Date : Tuesday, 6th May 2008
Time : 18:30-20:00
Location : Skills Matter, 1 Sekforde Street
Format : Presentation followed by a breakout for discussion, with further discussion in a local pub (The Crown).
Cost : Free, but registration is required.

Many thanks to Skills Matter for sponsoring the user group.

Sharing architectures

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:17:00 GMT

The last user group session may have seen a small turnout, but we did have some interesting discussion about sharing architecture. Here are my notes.

Architecture document should outline decisions and their implications - get people to sign-up (emotionally and contractually).
Writing the architecture document provides benefit because you are going through the thought process.
Who do we need to share the architecture with?
Who is the audience and what is important to them?
- Development team
- Support staff
- Budget holders
- External test team
How does the architecture document help these people and what is it that they find useful?
Should we ask developers to sign-off on the architecture?
Is "pair architecting" common practice and/or should we do more of it?
Documents are typically written to "cover your ass" rather than to be informative for developers and other stakeholders.
People's experience suggests that others don't retain the information they read in a document.
Documents are typically out of date (i.e. they are historical as soon as they are written).
"I don't have time to read it" is a common reason why people don't read the architecture documentation.
How large are people's architecture documents? (see results)
As software architects, we aren't paid to write documentation, we're paid to build working software.
Drawing on a whiteboard is often the best way to share an architecture.
- It's useful seeing how the diagram is drawn (i.e. where does it start, order of components, etc).
- It can be frustrating to re-draw the diagram(s) every time somebody asks about the architecture.
Why isn't architecture documentation updated?
UML diagrams are too much trouble (i.e. keeping them in sync with reality, use of a separate modelling tool, etc).
- Should CASE tools be better?
Is it better to put the information in people's hands? (e.g. architecture information in the IDE).

If you came along, feel free to add your own notes in the comments. Both the slides and video are available for download, and stay tuned for a podcast of the audio from the session. The next user group is scheduled for Tuesday, 6th May.