Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Software Architecture Guide

martinfowler.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 303 posts

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#31

Post by michael_j_ward »

millerm wrote: post #9
blub wrote: post #7

Whenever I see yet another article by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Robert Martin & co I ask myself - where is the evidence for what they are preaching? What are the graphs based on? What is the evidence behind the proposed rules? These authors are clearly accomplished blog and book writers, but anyone whose software-related accomplishments are not open source or at least well known should have their statements scrutiniz…

I have had this thought for many years. Where is all the perfectly designed, bug free, maintenance-bliss, fully documented, fully tested, future-proofed code located so we can all marvel at its glory?

I haven't gone through this yet- but my understanding is that there are some examples of this here "The Architecture of Open Source Applications" [1].

[1] http://aosabook.org/en/index.html

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#32

Post by streetcat1 »

geofft wrote: post #20
streetcat1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So first, you should read their books for concrete code. Martin books, for example "refactoring" or "Enterprise architecture" actually have good code examples. The same apply for kent beck early work on smalltalk (you can look at Junit) or his early work on the HotDraw editor (which was the source of many of the pattern in the Design Pattern book). Kent was one of the first adopter of smalltalk at the early 80 is tec…

The question was about "research" in the meaning of quantitative scientific evidence that these proposed techniques make software delivery better in real-world conditions, not "research" in the sense of new ideas from academics. As a professional, I don't want UML because I've seen no evidence it actually helps. Show me relevant studies that it does and I will absolutely change my mind. (And there are plenty of thing…

Sure. So UML is based on two main research areas - UML class diagram is based on rational algebra theory. A correct UML class diagram should follow the same normalization roles as defined by Codd seminal paper - "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks".

You can ask, how does Prof Codd knows that this is is the correct way to describe and implement data. Well this follow directly from set theory. Again, how do we know that set theory works - well here we are the level of axioms of the set algebra.

BTW, this Codd work was also "hacked" again by system R research which invented SQL.

The other part of UML is based on finite state machine, which originated by Turning, and later refined by the work of David Harel on state charts. Again, those are theoretical CS tools. However, the work of Harel on state charts, was originated from the work on the Israel first aircarft (to be cancelled later), where he needed to define the the missile system.

If you are interested on how those tool originated and later combined see the work of David Hay - "UML-Data-Modeling-Reconciliation"

Those tools are useful in scale. For example, system with 3000 different use cases. Or for example you have 200 - 500 classes, each is a state machine.

Again, since there is no software professional standard (not software engineering bar exam), you can or cannot use anything.

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#33

Post by notus »

blub wrote: post #7

Whenever I see yet another article by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Robert Martin & co I ask myself - where is the evidence for what they are preaching? What are the graphs based on? What is the evidence behind the proposed rules? These authors are clearly accomplished blog and book writers, but anyone whose software-related accomplishments are not open source or at least well known should have their statements scrutiniz…

They are speaking primarily from experience and I think they are pretty transparent about that. We're not in a field where many studies even exist on these types of processes. It is up to you as a developer to try them out and assess their merit.

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#34

Post by pjmorris »

blub wrote: post #7

Whenever I see yet another article by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Robert Martin & co I ask myself - where is the evidence for what they are preaching? What are the graphs based on? What is the evidence behind the proposed rules? These authors are clearly accomplished blog and book writers, but anyone whose software-related accomplishments are not open source or at least well known should have their statements scrutiniz…

To take the other side of this coin, where is the evidence that evidence makes a difference? At least, where is the evidence that evidence is what convinces a software developer or manager to change something about their process?

There are entire conferences [0,1] where hundreds of researchers present peer-reviewed studies, case studies, and concrete examples, evidence for various software engineering claims. Thousands of papers have been published at these conferences over time. Usually when those papers are linked here, they don't get much attention, e.g. [2], [3], [4].

As a rule, industry doesn't pay attention to them, except to hire the grad students out of academia. At these conferences, they spend a lot of time discussing how to get more industry participation. But the things they try haven't really worked so far.

To go to all the trouble of generating peer-reviewed science only to have it ignored may not be the best trade available for how Fowler, Beck, et al spend their time. There are doubts about whether it's the best way for academics to spend their time.

[0] http://www.icse-conferences.org/

[1] https://www.esec-fse.org/

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20064211

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20575415

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19714085

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#35

Post by [deleted] »

streetcat1 wrote: post #32
geofft wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was about "research" in the meaning of quantitative scientific evidence that these proposed techniques make software delivery better in real-world conditions, not "research" in the sense of new ideas from academics. As a professional, I don't want UML because I've seen no evidence it actually helps. Show me relevant studies that it does and I will absolutely change my mind. (And there are plenty of thing…

Sure. So UML is based on two main research areas - UML class diagram is based on rational algebra theory. A correct UML class diagram should follow the same normalization roles as defined by Codd seminal paper - "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks". You can ask, how does Prof Codd knows that this is is the correct way to describe and implement data. Well this follow directly from set theory. Again…

[deleted]

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#36

Post by fogetti »

blub wrote: post #7

Whenever I see yet another article by Martin Fowler, Kent Beck, Robert Martin & co I ask myself - where is the evidence for what they are preaching? What are the graphs based on? What is the evidence behind the proposed rules? These authors are clearly accomplished blog and book writers, but anyone whose software-related accomplishments are not open source or at least well known should have their statements scrutiniz…

I don't really understand your comment. Shows your ignorance to be honest: have you ever heard of active records? Or optimistic locking? Because these are VERY tangible software constructs and Martin Fowler for example wrote a whole book about them.

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#37

Post by billfruit »

omk wrote: post #5
chewyshine wrote: post #4

Unusually useless post. An aggregator that says little. Too bad.

I would really like to read through a solid post that details Enterprise Software Architecture. As the author mentions, it certainly is hazy and I wonder if you can bring in 2 architects form different firms to talk the same language. Wonder if HN has a recommendation.

I think many students will benefit from a detailed study and analysis of a large, real world software product/project, but unfortunately I think most of such knowledge/experience in the industry is never recorded anywhere and is simply lost when the people and teams, age and retire or move away. it is almost impossible to get access to internal software development docs from major developers, then if none outside can see them, how can they be studied, how can anyone find lacunae in them..

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#38

Post by gunnihinn »

billfruit wrote: post #29
jmartinpetersen wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert Martin seems to cherry pick stats and trends and whatever that fits his world view. In Clean Architecture he cites a study with N=1 as proof TDD works. I have no hope for him.

I generally dislike building arguments on top of statistics, rather than on theory which to my eye almost always looks more convincing. With statistics it is as if the burden is passed on to the reader to check the veracity and validity of the said numbers, where as if it is an argument constructed out of theory, the whole of it is present there for the reader to judge intrinsically on its own merits.

That restricts you to mathematics, logic or philosophy. Engineering, or the rest of the world, operates _at best_ on statistics.

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#39

Post by notus »

gregdoesit wrote: post #14

I have been building large scale/distributed systems myself and reviewing designs of systems like these being built around me, for years now. I have never come across any of the type of ivory tower architecture that this post and other sofware architects write about. We're talking about real-world systems that are high-load and somewhat novel, with battle-scarred engineers building them. I find it ironic that that ma…

I work at a fairly large company you've heard of and there is definitely a lot of application of the practices that he preaches. It never works perfectly because nothing ever does, but the effect of his teachings is noticeable. They are ideals to strive for. The failure at implementations tends to be more a people and process problem than a technical problem.

Re: Software Architecture Guide

#40

Post by geofft »

streetcat1 wrote: post #32
geofft wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was about "research" in the meaning of quantitative scientific evidence that these proposed techniques make software delivery better in real-world conditions, not "research" in the sense of new ideas from academics. As a professional, I don't want UML because I've seen no evidence it actually helps. Show me relevant studies that it does and I will absolutely change my mind. (And there are plenty of thing…

Sure. So UML is based on two main research areas - UML class diagram is based on rational algebra theory. A correct UML class diagram should follow the same normalization roles as defined by Codd seminal paper - "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks". You can ask, how does Prof Codd knows that this is is the correct way to describe and implement data. Well this follow directly from set theory. Again…

That's, again, not what I'm asking. I'm not asking for the theoretical underpinnings of why this is a good way to represent 200-500 classes. I'm asking why, if I and two coworkers need to code up 200-500 classes by next month to meet a promise to a customer, spending time on UML will make the customer happier. I have a programming language that itself has strong theoretical underpinnings. I also have a pretty good hunch that in about two weeks there will be a last-minute requirement that changes the structure of the data model, and in about three weeks there will be a production outage of another system that distracts my attention.

Will UML help me deliver software with changing requirements faster and more accurately? How does it compare to other options in my toolbox, like using a less verbose language that doesn't have real OO (which in my experience is often the right choice) and because of its conciseness is easier to make major changes to? How do I tie the UML object structure to my programming language, and why is it better than using a strongly- and richly-typed language in the first place? Why do I see many successful software projects that as far as I can tell don't use UML?

Post reply on HN