Affordable Software Architecture

A successful architecture must appear to have been constructed by a single mind, even though we know that many minds are actually involved. An effective approach is to build the architecture as a set of rules that are independent of the application. Because such an architecture is independent of the size of the application it is more affordable, especially for large systems. This paper describes how an application-independent architecture provides coherent rationale for architectural decisions and when to apply them, consistency across the application depending on circumstances, opportunities for automation, and— because the same decisions are not being taken (slightly differently) repeatedly across the application—a significantly more affordable and easy-to-test implementation.