一、“Architecture is like teenage sex,everybody talks about it,nobody really knows what is it.”
“Architecture is both the process and the product of planning,designing,and constructing buildings and other physical structures”
Divide a whole into different parts, complete these divisions of labor by different roles, and establish a mechanism for different parts to communicate with each other. Yes, these parts can be organically combined into a whole and complete all the activities required by the whole. It's architecture .
The dynamics (reasons) generated by the architecture, when the system scale reaches a certain level:
1) Work that has to be performed by someone. (No need for human intervention, which means no need for modification, and no need for architecture)
2) Everyone's abilities are limited. (The division of labor is meticulous, the things that can be focused on are limited, and collaboration is required)
3) Everyone has limited time. (System engineering needs to be completed within a limited time)
4) People have higher requirements for the target system. (Ascension is the driving force behind architectural change)
5) The complexity of the target system requires multiple people to complete it.
The architecture is:
1) According to the problem to be solved, the boundary of the target system is defined. (solve finite problems, not infinitely extensible problems)
2) Divide the target system according to a certain principle. The principle of segmentation is to facilitate different roles to carry out work on the segmented parts in parallel or serially. Generally, parallelization can reduce the time. And set up a communication mechanism for these divided parts.
3) According to 3, these parts can be organically linked, merged and assembled into a whole, and complete all the work of the target system.
2. Architecture actually solves people's problems, and concepts are the basis for people to perceive the world. The understanding of natural changes is very important.
According to the definition of architecture, the first ability to do architecture is to be able to correctly understand concepts, to be able to discover the problems behind the changes, and only now can we understand the problems that need to be solved in the target field, so that we can do a good job in the architecture. Lay the foundation.
The first thing you need to do to do a good architecture is to identify the problem that needs to be solved. Generally speaking, if the real problem is found, then 80% of the problem has been solved, and this ability can basically determine the level of the architect.
Finding the main body of the problem is the primary problem in building architecture. The problems we want to solve must be human problems. Furthermore, what architects need to solve are basically other people's problems, not their own. We must understand that any problem with finding an architect is definitely not a real problem. why? Because if it is a real problem, the people who ask the question will definitely be able to solve it by themselves, and there is no need to find an architect. Architects must have this awareness: discovering problems is always more important than solving them. (The solution is not the subject of the problem; for example, if the user needs a hammer, this is the solution, not the subject of the problem. The subject of the problem is "what problem does the user need a hammer to solve?")
3. Architecture segmentation
The essence of segmentation is the adjustment of interests; several principles of segmentation:
1) An activity that must occur in continuous time and cannot be segmented. For example, when a pregnant woman is pregnant, she must conceive in October, and it cannot be divided into 10 people to complete it in one month.
2) The person in charge of the divided part must have equal rights and obligations to this part. If the rights and obligations are not equal, it will hurt the interests of each individual, and the efficiency of implementation will be lower than that if they are not divided. In fact, it will also damage the interests of the whole, which goes against the original intention of improving the interests of the whole. (Stakeholders)
3) The segmented part should not exceed the load of a natural person.
4) Segmentation is an internal activity. No matter how the interior is segmented, it should be transparent to the outside of the entire system. If the problem solved by the whole system changes because of slicing, then the change is not an architectural activity.
All architecture splits should be the result of forming a tree, and should not become a directed graph, let alone an undirected graph. When many people talk about architecture, they must talk about layering, but basically they don't realize that it is because a whole is split into a tree, and because there is a tree, there are layers.
In fact, the process of segmentation is the process of modeling. Every time a large problem is segmented, many small problems will be generated, and each small problem will form a different concept.
Any structural adjustment will involve the organizational structure and must not be taken lightly. Similarly, if the interests of stakeholders are not fully separated, the structure will not be implemented, because no one is willing to harm their own interests. Once enforced, people's hearts begin to crumble. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as principle 2) is satisfied, a new order and a new interest relationship can be well established, and the healthy development of the organization can be maintained. There will be detriment to certain immediate interests.
4. Prerequisites for architects:
If a person is only committed to completing his own work at work, and his main goal is to do his own work, he can only become a craftsman at most, not an architect. Because this process solves your own problems. When the work we do is part of the social division of labor, we need to help others solve problems, and when solving other people's problems on time becomes our own problem, we will have time pressure, and there will naturally be a subconscious sense of time. of fear. This fear subconsciously pushes us to use various means in order to complete the work in time.
To be an architect, you have to look beyond this fear to see clearly that we are solving other people's problems, not doing our own work. Because just completing the problems of one's own work does not necessarily solve the problems of others.
"If the problem is not solved, who will lose profits? If the problem is solved, who will benefit and who will benefit the most?" By answering these two questions, we can find the subject of the "problem".
The architect must be the leader of an organization and have the right to mobilize the structure of the organization, so as to better play the role of the architect and better implement the adjustment of interests. Therefore, many companies have established many architect positions, but they do not have the right to mobilize the organizational structure, so the position of the architect must be useless. The architect can only formalize the rights of the architect by establishing a certain process, such as forcing the review of the architecture, but it will cause a lot of unnecessary internal conflicts, and eventually these processes will become a mere formality, and the gains outweigh the losses. I believe many people have experienced this, but few people seem to go back and explore why.
At the heart of all architecture is organizational architecture. Or it can be said that a qualified organizational leader must be a qualified architect.
5. The relationship between technology, architecture and business
Technology is created to solve business problems. Without business, technology has no premise to exist.
1) On the premise of solving a business problem, more efficient and lower-cost technologies will eliminate inefficient and high-cost technologies. This is determined by the demands of human interests.
2) Generally, the technical efficiency of solving the fundamental problem at the beginning is relatively low, but the impossible becomes possible. Then there will be a need to improve efficiency, asking to improve the technology.
Different technologies are combined together through a tree structure to form a complete architectural solution to jointly accomplish business goals. This is the relationship between technology, business and architecture.