Architectural programming diagrams software#

Circulate the design document within the team/organization and get feedback.Did you choose to extend a service or module with new functionality? Weigh the option of building a separate service or module instead, and what the pros and cons of that approach would be. Is your architecture split into different services? Mention why you decided against going with one large service, that might have some other benefits, like more straightforward and quicker deployment. No design choice is good or bad by itself: it all depends on the context and the goals.

Architectural programming diagrams software#

Good software design and good architecture are all about making the right tradeoffs.

Talk about tradeoffs and alternatives.

At Uber, we use an RFC-like process with various templates. Write it using clear and easy to follow language. Keep jargon to the minimum: you want even junior engineers to understand what it's about.

Write it up via simple documentation with simple diagrams based on what you explained on the whiteboard.

If you have trouble with this explanation or it's not clear enough, there's more work required on the details. You should be able to explain the architecture of your system/app on a whiteboard clearly, starting at the high-level, diving deeper as needed. Get the team together and have a person draw up the approach the team is converging to. Start at a high level, going down to lower levels. Get together with the team and through multiple sessions, figure out what solution will work. What are we trying to solve? What product are we trying to build and why? How can we measure success? Most teams and projects - however large or small - all shared a similar approach to design and implementation: I've had this discussion with peer engineers working at other tech companies, FANG (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google), as well as at smaller startups. So how did we get things done? And why did we not follow approaches suggested by well-known software architecture approaches? Software design at tech companies and startups However, there was no need to reference them in the design documents themselves. Some of these did come up during brainstormings. No mentions of microservices, serverless architecture, application boundaries, event-driven architecture, and the lot. Third, we had practically no references to the common architecture patterns and other jargon referenced in common software architecture literature, such as Martin Fowler's architecture guide. While these experienced developers drove the design process, even the most junior team members were involved, often challenging decisions and offering other alternatives to discuss. However, no one person owned the architecture or design. For all the projects, we did have experienced engineers involved. Engineers at higher levels, like staff engineers, are expected to still regularly code. True, neither Uber nor Skype/Microsoft have hands-off software architect positions. No IT architects or enterprise architects. Second, there were no architects on the teams that owned the design. Two diagrams within the same design document often had a different layout and were often added and modified by different engineers.

Just plain old boxes and arrows, similar this one describing information flow or this one outlining class structure and relationships between components. We created plenty of diagrams, but none of them followed any strict rules.

We did not use UML, nor the 4+1 model, nor ADR, nor C4, nor dependency diagrams. First, none of these designs used any of the standard software architecture planning tools. Let me start with a few things that might sound surprising.

Rewriting the Uber app was a project that a few hundred engineers worked simultaneously on, porting existing functionality to a new architecture. The payments system rewrite had to replace two, existing payments systems, used by tens of systems and dozens of teams, all without having any business impact. They were also not just greenfield projects. The designs then boiled down to a design document that was circulated for more feedback before we started building.Īll of these systems were large at scale: hundreds of developers build them - or on top of them - and they power systems used by millions of people per day. All of these systems had thorough designs, going through multiple iterations and had lots of whiteboarding and discussion. I've taken part in rewriting Uber's distributed payment systems, designing and shipping Skype on Xbox One and open-sourcing RIBs, Uber's mobile architecture framework. I had my fair share in designing and building large systems. Menu Software Architecture is Overrated, Clear and Simple Design is Underrated