Why doing Software Architecture?

… Well, it sounds simple but it is definitely not. One reason is that software architecture is still new in many project as software engineering is in general (in comparison to other engineering disciplines). Sad but true. Software architecture pays off late in a project and it is not that visible as running code or prototypes. Hence, the temptation exist to leave this out or to reduce it to a non acceptable minimum. It is pretty much the same handling as projects treat requirement management very often. If this is just halfway done you must pay in the end. Sure, it is a lot of work and it slows down a quick start and first results , but it is necessary. A software that does not meet elementary (non-functional) requirements like extensibility, robustness or scalability is more or less a quick-hack that does not satisfies the majority of the stakeholders in the projects. As a result, re-design and main changes will increase the overall costs extremely. We all know this. Okay, I will write more about the pro’s of decent software architecture in the next posting. Stay tuned.