May 2014

Android Kernel: Lacking in Modularity










Analyzing ArgoUML

Johan van den Muijsenberg just published (in Dutch) his analysis of ArgoUML in a magazine published by the Java User Group in Netherlands. The brilliance of Johan's analysis is in how logically straightforward it is and how that analysis yields clearly identifiable architectural issues and fixes. It is yet another example of how easily architecture erodes from its intended design. If more teams were to focus on fixing "bugs" in architecture, they would reap rich dividends in improved quality and productivity.

My main complaint is why Dutch readers should be the only ones to benefit from this interesting and useful article. Here is a Google translation into English.

What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Software Architecture

What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Software Architecture

The writers of Star Trek Voyager envisioned a game that was worthy of challenging the superior mind and intellect of a Vulcan. They called it Kal-toh. To the human eye, Kal-toh looks to be a high-tech fusion of Jenga and chess. Lieutenant Tuvok of the starship Voyager would be quick to tell you "Kal-toh is to chess as chess is to tic-tac-toe.”

In Kal-toh, the players are presented with rod like game pieces that are in total chaos. This could be compared to legacy code with no discernable architecture or documentation – spaghetti code or a big ball of mud. The object of Kal-toh is to move the pieces (systems and subsystems) until a perfect structure or architecture is formed. The challenge in Kal-toh, as in Software Architecture Design, is that if you move the wrong piece, the entire structure can collapse.

Kal-toh and Software Architecture are based on very similar principles. An experienced Kal-toh player has the ability to visualize the complexity in the Kal-toh puzzle. Without fully understanding how the Kal-toh pieces interact with each other there is no road map to create stability in the structure.

Visualizing software systems is hard because there are a very large number of elements with dependencies on each other. Therefore, the ability to scale is critical. Furthermore, the purpose of visualization is to reveal the architecture. This means that it is important to not just draw the dependencies but to show where dependencies are missing and to highlight the problematic dependencies.

Lattix has pioneered an award winning approach for large scale visualization based on a Dependency Structure Matrix (DSM). Lattix incorporates hierarchy in the display, while showing the architectural decomposition and the dependencies at the same time. Built-in algorithms help discover architecture. What-if capabilities allow users to modify the current structure to reflect the desired architecture. Users get a big picture view while still identifying problematic dependencies. Lattix also provides an intuitive Conceptual Architecture diagram that takes some of the lessons of a DSM and makes them accessible to a wider audience.

Let me leave you with a Star Trek quote. Lieutenant Tuvok said “Kal-toh is not about striving for balance. It is about finding the seeds of order, even in the midst of profound chaos." The same can be said about Lattix.