Beyond Software Architecture

Martin Fowler Signature Book

by Luke Hohmann

Praise for Beyond Software Architecture

“Luke Hohmann is that rare software technologist who views software development from the viewpoint of the end user. He passionately believes that one hour spent with an end user is worth many hours making software architectural choices or days documenting perceived user requirements. Most of what is written about software development focuses on methods used to design and develop robust software. Luke’s latest effort, Beyond Software Architecture, illuminates the more mundane aspects of creating true business solutions by supporting the user throughout the lifecycle of the software product. By concerning himself with creating business value, Luke tightens the connection between a software application and the business function it performs.”

         —Bruce Bourbon
             General Partner, Telos Venture Partners

“There are two kinds of people that read the Dilbert comic strip: folks that take a moment to marvel at how accurately it reflects life at their company before moving on to the next comic strip, and folks that think Dilbert is an amusing reminder that high tech companies can and should be better than Dilbert’s world. Anyone in the first group should stick to reading comics. This book is for people in the latter group.”

         —Tony Navarrete
             Vice President, Diamondhead Ventures

“Lukebrings a proven methodology to the challenge of software development. In Beyond Software Architecture, Luke provides practical and proven techniques that all development executives can employ to improve the productivity of their software organization.”

         —G. Bradford Solso
             CEO, Taviz Technology

“Beyond Software Architecture is the first book I have read which contains an insider’s perspective of both the business and technical facets of software architecture. This is a great book to get marketers and software managers on the same page!”

         —Damon Schechter
             CEO, LOC Global
             author of Delivering the Goods

“There are books on technical architecture and books on product marketing, but few, if any, on how architecture and marketing information must be integrated for world class product development. Beyond Software Architecture provides this valuable bridge between technology and marketing—it explains how to deliver quality products that are profitable in the marketplace.”

         —Jim Highsmith
             Director, Cutter Consortium
             author of Adaptive Software Development

“Product development managers, marketing managers, architects, and technical leads from all functions should read this book. You’ll see a pragmatic view of how to define and use a product architecture throughout a project’s lifecycle and a product's lifetime.”

         —Johanna Rothman
             Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.

“Luke Hohmann has captured the essence of product creation in his latest book. He cleverly discusses the need for both the marketing and engineering roles in product creation and ties the two together building a good foundation for understanding and executing successful product creation.”

         —Lee Sigler
             Principal, 360 Market View, Inc.

“Finally a book that deals with those often ignored but critical operational issues like licensing, deployment, installation, configuration and support. Beyond Software Architecture is the “What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School” book for anyone who develops software products—or buys them.”

         —Mary Poppendieck
             Managing Director, Agile Alliance
             President, Poppendieck LLC

“Luke Hohmann delivers a passionate, articulate wake-up call to software architects: it ain’t just technical any more! Technical architectures have profound business ramifications, and ignoring the business ramifications of portability, usability, configuration, upgrade and release management, security, and other architectural choices can not only lead to project failures, but ultimately to nasty lawsuits from disappointed customers. Beyond Software Architecture is a must-read for successful software product managers!”

         —Ed Yourdon
             Author of numerous books and articles on software development

“Beyond Software Architecture is not just for software engineering professionals! Executives and product managers will find that the book provides the necessary background to make informed decisions about the software that their companies build. I have found that the book is a useful tool for building consensus between management and engineering, because it discusses business and customer-related issues without delving too deeply into implemen...

Genres: Architecture, Programming, Technology, Software, Computer Science, Technical, Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[William Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It takes a substantial amount of mental stamina to get through this text. Long winded at times, the advice, thoughts and considerations mentioned are well worth the read and were enlightening. I more strongly reccomend picking specific chapters and focusing on those. This is certainly a book more on theory and advice along that vein as opposed to executions., giving insight into both marketing decisions as well as technical ones that can be made.

Think of it as "Marketing considerations for technical products." There are many different positions that could gain extreme value from this book, but as mentioned before, be ready for a long dry read.

[Dani · Rating 5 out of 5]

So this is a read that takes work, but is worth it if you are interested in building and selling sustainable software. Luke Hohmann does a great job of wrapping up the entire process from idea to implementation and what needs to be considered. Are a lot of the ideas are not new. People know they need to scope the problem and know their domain, they know they need to think about how they are going to sell this item since this will affect implementation, they know that they need to build modular code, need to document, think about installation from the very beginning and everyone is clearly aware that no one reads installation manuals, etc. What makes this book special is it looks at all these aspects in it's entirety and provides good examples for what makes sense and the problems that happen when you ignore certain aspects. Also, even though everyone in the industry knows what they are supposed to do, everyone knows that most large scale software projects are still NOT doing these things. These flaws are very evident in a majority of the software products that are offered today. One of the more novel takeaways from this book was the basic definitions of Marketecture and Tarchitecture and how these roles need to work together. To be successful at Marketing a product unless you understand how it is built so that you can offer the product in a way that exploits the best of your product while providing the best benefits to your customers. To be a successful Tarchitecture you need to understand how your product can best be sold so you can build it in a way that aligns to your customers needs. This book is a good high level reference for software evaluation. It would be useful when you first start a project as well as evaluating a current program for strengths and weakness, providing an evaluation checklist for each subject. Once you know where your project stands you will be able to know where you should concentrate your energies.

[Aelena · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had higher expectations from this one. Luckily I got it second hand and didn't cough up much. Only a few interesting insights, the rest common knowledge, nothing ground breaking, unless you are a complete novice.

[Robert Postill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best described as a wearying trudge through the author's laundry list of things architects don't think about.

[Mikhail Filatov · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is more about product management than Software Architecture. Strangely enough, Product Management is introduced in the beginning, but after that the author decides to split architecture into "marchitecture" (marketing architecture) and tarchitecture (technical architecture).
Marchitecture is mostly used commonly as a synonym for "vaporware", while in author' terms it is about all external facing aspects of Software architecture: pricing, branding, release management, etc.
Which is mostly the stuff PM should be taking care of.
There are actually some interesting thoughts, especially about pricing which are not outdated.
Any "tarchitecture" stuff is really from 2002, if not from 90s.

[Christoph Kappel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am not exactly sure about this one. The generell idea to separate architecture in a marketing and a technical is quite nice, especially if you use this metaphor to talk about the different aspects of both ways.So the wording "marchitecture" and "tarchitecture" work pretty well.

The book is generally focused about the complete product cycle, from creating it to brining it to the end customer which I normally never see, due to the nature of being rather a consultant.

I must admit I sometimes had to force myself to go on, some parts were boring for me.

[Allisonperkel · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is out of date and it shows. The main areas are good ideas to look at but the details ... there is a lot of fluff and it’s quite behind the curve even for 2008. This may be why I didn’t finish the book earlier.

However if you are newish to what to consider when building software this book does give a decent checklist of non software considerations. You’ll need to just verify the advice given is still good.

[Mike Fowler · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have tried to read this book on no fewer that three occasions, I simply find it dull and uninteresting. Perhaps coming to this after years of lean product management the lessons aren't as relevant as they might once have been.

[Moutasem Awa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers a great unique mix between software architecture and product marketing, in a simple language for techy people.

[A37 · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a mistake. I had my own ideas about how awesome this book would be. I was GRAVELY mistaken.

[Abdulla Mamun · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much interesting about this book

[Daniel Gomez Rico · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a cool lecture that may help to clear what a software architecture, but I was hoping to find more practical information around it

[Avraam Mavridis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess it was great content when it was first released, nowadays feels outdated

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Admittedly entropy reduction isn't a bad idea

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good book...takes some time to read, think, re-read to really get the gist of what Luke Hohmann writes. It's easy to dismiss it as lightweight...until you bother thinking and re-reading.

[TK Keanini]

good text on the processes that we call software architecture. the trick is how to make it work in your own social environment

[Vesa]

Can definitely serve as a checklist for a new product, but a pretty tedious read from cover to cover.

[Delhi Irc]

Location: PTI IRC
Accession No: DL027418