I get anxious when working on back-end code. Data loss, security breaches and scalability/performance issues seem to be lurking around every corner if I don't pay attention. Sure, I can come up with a solution to most problems thrown my way, but with every design choice there's always the thought that maybe I didn't think it through and I forgot about a critical part of the system and it will have serious ramifications in the future.
This feeling is not only at my day job where I work on a fairly complex Rails app, but also in my hobby of game design and development — sketching out ideas and hacking together a prototype is one thing, but building it so that the code is maintainable, scalable, secure and easily understood from the start feels like black magic.
Of course, architecture and design patterns are not only a back-end thing. I've learned to write more or less maintainable code over the years and always seek ways to make it more flexible and concise, but the end result is just cosmetics anyway and the real magic happens elsewhere, so it doesn't feel as important.
Aside from just reading and understanding the source code I'm working on and familiarizing myself with source code of other, open-source applications, what are other good ways to learn the "correct mindset" of building systems? I'm most interested in how to think about the system as a whole and how to divide it into parts that make the most sense, given the overall problem the system is trying to solve; How to think about data flow, single responsibility, patterns that can be applied etc. How and where should I even begin?
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I've read tons of books about the topic but if I have to pick one it would be Release it from Michael Nygard who has also tons of good material about the topic .
Found one android app which curates system design question and different approaches about how to solve them. It also covers many other CS Fundamentals and other material
play.google.com/store/apps/details...
Can you point to some resources that would guide me through journey of implementing Kernel or link to Pinto should be good enough? Thanks for sharing
After a few years of working in software industry, I agree that software architecture or system design areextremely important in the beginning of a project. It definitely determines the success of a project.
Actually, there are many design pattern available for us to study. The below is my list of Design Pattern for study. If you have list, please tell me.
Developing a functional programming mindset will go a long way to making you a better engineer, since software architecture and engineering are extensions of programming. I'd say, study how functional languages (Clojure, Elixir, Haskell) solve the classic problems of statelessness, concurrency, and distributed architecture.
Here are a couple more resources:
pragprog.com/book/swdddf/domain-mo...
pragprog.com/book/mkdsa/design-it
Best of luck.
Being a good architect is about awareness. And for that we turn to Donald Rumsfeld: ‘There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know.’
And so you'd focus on eliminating the unknowns by identifying the paths to discoverability.
There's the hands on approach, actively seek out the problems and solutions of different fields - such as taking on a game project as a web developer.
Working with experts in adjacent fields can help discovering problems you didn't know existed - I wouldn't have known about firewall microsegmentation if it weren't for some proactive network security engineers.
Keeping up on current events can be illuminating - I just saw a tweet about blockchain tokens: a solution for a problem I was unaware of.
The architects I know like conventions. I think it's important to research counterpoints to what's presented afterwards.
Vendor presentations can be enlightening. They're catering to many more companies than just your own.
I'm sure there are more ways to increase awareness. Known unknowns I guess.
Like Ben, I have been at this quite a while and completed many projects in my life. I can't really nail one single thing down that made me become confidant in my architectural abilities but I believe it just came down to the experience of doing it more than several times. I think it really comes down to confidence in your abilities from experience.
The few tips I can offer from experience are...
Get a whiteboard if you don't have one already. This is where I draw out my initial thoughts about a project and it's processes and architecture then later use it to visualize flows and relationships.
Read, Read, Read... Pick up some good books like Eloquent Ruby, Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, and other books that help you build your skills in a thoughtful way.
Don't get overly anxious about your code or architecture. As you complete more projects through the years your confidence will grow as will your knowledge. Go with what you know NOW.
Good luck to you!
I learn from examples, in the last few months I gathered an youtube playlist with real "big" examples architectures.
If you want to go deep and also train for an interview, the System design from the interviewBit is the best resource I could find (as of quality).
As for the books, if you are interested how the distributed systems work (databases, cloud services, back-back end stuff), this is the "bible"
Unfortunately most of the "architecture" books are old, built with the Java/C++ monolith set of mind (outdated), so there aren't so many good ones left out there, but a few were mentioned in the other comments. There are some micro-services dedicated ones, maybe a few for Lambda, but I haven't found one that presented all types of "current" types of architectures, with examples.
If you are into gaming systems, a new book was launched, I haven't read it but it seems very promising and has good reviews: Game Programming Patterns
Most of the resources on here are links to half baked material.
But check this: educative.io/collection/5668639101...
It is not free, but will teach you a crazy amount by learning from the big players and their architectural patterns. There are a few free chaptere to give you an idea of the flow of the course. Hope that helps.
This is amazing - I read through the first few preview chapters and really liked how the information is presented. Thanks!