Software Architecture Principles

published 2019-02-15

This is just a short post to share what I now consider, after 10 years in the industry (and almost twice as many writing code), my core software architecture principles.

You may or may not agree with them all, but if you design software or systems, you should have a similar list in your head; it really helps a lot when making decisions.

Without further ado, the principles are:

Separation of Concern [1] often trumps not repeating oneself (DRY [2]). In other words, avoiding duplication does not justify introducing coupling.

Gall's Law [3]: "A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked."

Conway's Law [4]: "Organizations produce designs which are copies of their communication structures."

When writing code or designing, stop and think "consequences". What will be the impact of what you are doing on the rest of the systems? Could there be adverse side-effects?

Think about debuggability in production. There is nothing worse than having your software break and not being able to figure out why. Do not automate things you do not understand.

Write code that is easy to delete, not easy to extend. [5]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_concerns

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_repeat_yourself

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gall_(author)#Gall%27s_law

4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

5: https://programmingisterrible.com/post/139222674273/write-code-that-is-easy-to-delete-not-easy-to