Links to Other Sites
Agile Architecture and Modelling
I support the
Agile Modeling and
Agile Data work being led
by Scott Ambler. These two sites are among the best other resources for agile
developers interested in modelling, architecture and architecture issues.
The Agile
Alliance is an organisation dedicated to promoting agile development
methods. Not everything they say is right for the Agile Architect, but it's
still a good source of ideas and other links.
Application Architecture - General
The following are good reference sources on topics related to software
architecture:
- CBDi Forum - A key source on
Component-Based Development, service-based architectures, and a lot of related
topics including EAI. They have some pretty good free content, and a regular
email newsletter. A subscription is recommended if these are areas of interest
to you.
- EBizQ Network - A cross-industry
review group looking at issues related to EAI and message-based integration in
particular. They have some good free content, and a regular newsletter.
- IBM's Patterns
for eBusiness - A useful catalogue of analysis, business and architectural
patterns for eCommerce systems.
- Reliability Software Listing
- A useful listing of software and reference sources on the topic of
reliability assessment, for both hardware and software.
- Microsoft's Visual Basic
Homepage - The fount of all knowledge (well, some of it!) for VB.
- British Computer Society Testing SIG
- A very good starting point for information on software testing.
- Bredemeyer Consulting Resources for
Software Architects - This is a first-class site for anyone interested in
the process of software architecture and the role of the architect, with a
substantial amount of free content.
- Nucleus Research - An
unusual organisation, Nucleus Research concentrate almost entirely on
evaluating Return On Investment (ROI) for various software and technology
initiatives. It's an excellent place to start if you're trying to sell the
value of technology.
- The Cynefin web site
has a number of useful articles on the use of stories, and the
Cynefin Framework which
describes different decision-making and problem-solving environments.
- VRAPS.COM David Kane, David
Dikel, and Jim Wilson wrote an excellent book entitled "Software Architecture:
Organisational Principles and Patterns" It's about how to make architectural
changes across an organisation. It's very much about the softer aspects of
selling ideas, getting buy-in, and then seeing changes through. This site
presents a lot of useful material from and related to the book and their model
for architecture. You can also
read my review of
their book.
User Interface Design
I take an active interest in issues around user interface design, and how
people interact with computer systems. To my mind, one of the most important
initiatives in recent years is the Expressive Systems movement lead by
CSC's Richard Pawson. You can read
my review of his
book, or visit the Expressive Systems web site:
Larry Constantine and Lucy Lockwood's site,
ForUse, is a very good source for lots of information on software usability
and how this can be defined through modern system development approaches such as
UML. In particular they have several papers which describe agile approaches to
controlled user interface design.
There's also a growing movement which is trying to apply patterns to user
interface design. I've been disappointed in the books so far, but the following
two sites have useful pattern catalogues: