{"id":615,"date":"2015-08-26T19:46:59","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T19:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/solutionstreet.com\/blog\/?p=615"},"modified":"2015-08-26T19:46:59","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T19:46:59","slug":"building-a-software-architecture-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solutionstreet.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/26\/building-a-software-architecture-for-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Building a Software Architecture for the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AugustTitleBig2Wide\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about the future. Not so much in terms of flying cars or the iPhone 1000, but rather how important is it to select the right architecture components for building an enterprise system that will last way into the future – maybe 20-30 years? There\u2019s lots of blog articles on the web about the latest architecture components and a host of their zealot followers. And it\u2019s not just architecture components – it\u2019s software languages, methodologies, databases, and deployment options just to name a few. Just within the JavaScript language as an example, we have dozens if not hundreds of frameworks to choose from. In a world where technology has a new \u201ccool kid on the block\u201d everyday, how do you choose the building blocks for an architecture that will last well into the future; knowing that some of your components were written no more than 6 months ago by a dozen people in a dozen countries who are all probably half of your age!?<\/div>\n
Before delving too far into procedurally how I would do this, I would make the somewhat loose correlation of picking a future-proof software architecture with picking a financial allocation of right stocks and bonds and other investments for a solid long-term performance. My experience and knowledge working with financial investments is greater than most, although it pales in comparison to my years as a developer. Nonetheless, I have learned a great deal about investing and my philosophy around investing can best be summed up as “follow what you already know works.” Many investors like to pick the shiny coin and go with hearsay and gut feels and especially try to time the market. Obviously we know that this sometimes works, but most often it doesn\u2019t. When it comes to your future retirement savings, why chance it? If you know certain strategies (albeit boring) will most likely put you in the top 20% of investors in terms of returns over the course of a long term investment, then why mess with success?<\/div>\n
When it comes to software development, it\u2019s not the languages and components (stocks and bonds and precious metals) so much as it is the overall strategy. In development we know the people on a project will come and go, but it\u2019s the software that is left behind and building a loosely-coupled, consistent, highly tested, well documented\/commented system will give you 80% of future-proofing. In my 25+ years of software development experience I have worked on many systems. Some are still in production for more than two decades. They were not written in Python, Ruby, JavaScript, or even Java. They were written in COBOL! (sometimes referred to as the 5 letter word for software engineers). But the amazing part of these systems were that they were built solid – consistent and documented (unfortunately not many tests, though). Somewhat even more important, is that they were built simply – any fairly good COBOL programmer could follow along with the pattern and nothing was overly complex. Nowadays we are building highly complex systems with over\u2013architecting the system with too many components and not enough simplicity.<\/div>\n
\"Image1\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Of course taking the time to select the right language, components, databases, etc., is important and should be well thought out, here are my list of items that are critical to building a future-proof architecture regardless of the specific make-up of the architecture:<\/div>\n