Summary

Simple systems are easier to evolve over time. Unfortunately, simple architecture is not easy to design or build.

This introductory class teaches the foundational skills that every architect should possess: how to explore the boundary of your system, identify interfaces, design for availability, and communicate up, down, sideways, and into the future.

Description

There is no end state. We must all learn to build systems that evolve and grow. In this course, Michael Nygard introduces the fundamental skills and concepts of architecture, with a particular eye toward systems that admit change—bending and flexing through time.

This workshop includes both teaching and hands-on design sessions. Design sessions will be paper and whiteboard work in small groups. You’ll work on real problems drawn from a variety of industries.

Prerequisite knowledge

Experience in software development. No architecture experience is required.

What you’ll learn

• Learn how to define and discover the boundary of your system.
• Explain the architecture qualities and what it means to prioritize them.
• Learn several architecture patterns and styles to apply in real systems.
• Learn how to analyze coupling and cohesion in system designs.
• Learn how to build systems in simpler pieces that can be recombined and recomposed to enable new business capabilities, all without running afoul of YAGNI

Topics Covered

• Information hiding
• Decision hiding
• Separation of concerns
• Architectural styles
• Architectural patterns
• Consumer-driven contracts
• Segregated interfaces
• Bounded context
• Hexagonal architecture