software design

This book offers a very good overview of this important discipline as well as a sound introduction into state-of-the-art architecture-centered engineering.

Good structure, well chosen case studies and a good coverage of all relevant topics.

I think this is a must-read for every decent software engineer.

SAIP gave some useful insights into how to apply the most practical aspects of software architecture to projects. Rather than dwelling on the "pie in the sky" theories that are so abundant (but which are usually completely impractical in a company which needs revenue to survive), the authors give good practices to meet both architectural quality, and practical goals. They also give some fairly illustrative examples.

What I didn't like about the book was that it doesn't present a complete approach to developing a software architecture. It outlines many different pieces of the puzzle of architecting, but doesn't do a good job of putting the complete puzzle together for the reader.

I appreciated the authors' "real world" sense in their discussions. They don't get overly religious about a documentation style and they emphasize the need for a holistic approach to understanding architecture's impact on the application and the organization (e.g. work assignments, organizational view, risk assessment, ATAM as a communication tool etc).

I particularly liked their presentation on the building blocks of an architecture as well as their discussion on tactics.

My only criticism, and the students' as well, were the study cases. They threw too much at the reader about specific projects (some which were never completed). I think there should have been a better balance on the type of applications as well.

I do plan on using this text again for my class next year.