T HE B ASICS O F S OFTWARE A RCHITECTURE F OR.NET D EVELOPERS Dan Douglas | Senior Software Developer/ Architect Blog:

S OFTWARE A RCHITECTURE IS : Structure and design of the application/system Components, and how they are implemented Connectors – the relationship between the components Reducing complexity through abstraction Breaking an application into distinct features that overlap in functionality as little as possible Functions can be optimized independently Failure of one function does not cause the others to fail

T HE S OFTWARE A RCHITECT T AKES I NTO A CCOUNT : Design Patterns Best Practices n-Layering (UI, Façade, Business, Data, etc) Modularity Application Frameworks Current and Emerging Technologies Reusability

A DVANTAGES OF A G OOD A RCHITECTURE Compatibility Extensibility Reliability Maintainability Usability Availability Security Solutions that are easier to design, enhance, and maintain

I MPLICIT R EQUIREMENTS An Analogy: Implicit requirements are those that engineers automatically include as a matter of professional duty. Most of these are requirements the engineer knows more about than their sponsor. For instance, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge showed that winds are a problem for suspension bridges. The average politician is not expected to know about this, however. Civil engineers would never allow themselves to be in a position to say, after a new bridge has collapsed, “We knew wind would be a problem, but you didn’t ask us to deal with it in your requirements.” Source: MSDN Architecture Article: Are We Engineers? or Crafts People?

I MPLICIT R EQUIREMENTS It is the “duty” of the software architect to determine potential problems or risks with a design and mitigate or eliminate these risks The stakeholders of the project, don’t necessarily understand these risks nor do they necessarily understand their importance to the long term success of the project

I MPLICIT U NDERSTANDING O F R ISK This will lead to a better analysis and resolution of risk, including: Scaling Compatibility Future Maintenance and Enhancements Usability Issues Stakeholder Buy-In and Support Proper Business Processes In Place etc…

F OR.NET D EVELOPERS Solid Understanding of Object Oriented Programming Objects, Instances, Inheritance, Abstraction, Encapsulation (Interfaces), Polymorphism, Decoupling, etc.NET Design Patterns Very useful patterns to understand include (Strategy, Façade, Adapter, and Singleton) Keep up to date on the latest technology SOA, WF, WPF, WCF, LINQ, etc

F OR.NET D EVELOPERS Increase Your Productivity and Effectiveness Develop application components that are re-useable Look to re-use existing components Always consider modularity and decoupling Look at third party components (Infragistics, Telerik, etc) Consider ORM mapping tools such as LLBL Gen Pro

F OR.NET D EVELOPERS Understand the Value of Generics Generics make type parameters possible Defers the type of a method or object until it is instantiated (ex: List(Of T) Ex:) New List object is typed to be of type animal Understand the Value of Reflection System.Reflection namespace Load objects at run time, get a list of methods and properties of objects at run time (even private ones) and call them Many practical uses, including the ability to create a “Pluggable Architecture”

F OR.NET D EVELOPERS Microsoft Patterns & Practices Enterprise Library Provides common application blocks to be used within your application for Data Access, Cryptography, Caching, Exception Handling, Logging, Security, and more. Software Factories Architectural factories for building your application, including, Smart Client, Web Service, and Mobile Client Red-Gate.NET Reflector is a Cool Tool! Allows you to view, navigate, and search through the class hierarchies of.NET assemblies Look at the code behind the objects in.NET Framework classes to see how they work

R ESOURCES MSDN Architecture Center Bredemeyer.com (Software Architecture Resources) Data & Object Factory (.NET Design Patterns) Microsoft Patterns & Practices Reflector System.Reflection Namespace My Blog (Dan Douglas)

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