Architecture

1We don’t tend to use the term “building blocks” when describing the structure of a software system. Instead we use terms such as “component”, “module”, “service”, “microservice”, “layer”, etc. Unfortunately some of these terms are ambiguous. As you’ll see in volume 2 of “Software Architecture for Developers”, this causes a number of problems when diagramming and documenting software architecture.↩

2My own job title for a number of years was “Technical Architect”. With hindsight, this was not very descriptive or accurate, since my day-to-day focus was primarily software architecture rather than anything else.↩

3Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Function as a Service (FaaS) environments typically hide the underlying hardware completely, and instead provide higher-level abstractions on which to build and deploy software systems. Understanding the constraints of these environments is still important if you want to build software that “works”.↩