I recently read 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know from O’Reilly.
In a nutshell, the book was a short read, concise, and for the most part, readable and useful to the aspiring software architect.
The items provided a good balance between people, business and technology issues. I was able to associate many of the items with real-life experiences. In addition, useful practical principles were presented for each domain.
Unfortunately, there were also a few items that were less useful, mostly due to
- Overly complicated or poorly styled language (making them difficult to read)
- Overuse of fancy metaphors and quotes that did not shed any light into anything as far as I’m concerned
- Lack of real content (though it may be that I simply did not realize their value)
Nevertheless, the book is definitely worth the read.
For the record, I’m not a software architect (yet).
-Jukka