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About architecture

Problems​

Usually, the conversation about architecture is raised when the development stops due to certain problems in the project.

Bus-factor & Onboarding​

Only a limited number of people understand the project and its architecture

Examples:

  • "It's difficult to add a person to the development"
  • "For every problem, everyone has their own opinion on how to get around" (let's envy the angular)
  • "I don't understand what is happening in this big piece of monolith"

Implicit and uncontrolled consequences​

A lot of implicit side effects during development/refactoring ("everything depends on everything")

Examples:

  • "The feature imports the feature"
  • "I updated the store of one page, and the functionality fell off on the other"
  • "The logic is smeared all over the application, and it is impossible to track where the beginning is, where the end is"

Uncontrolled reuse of logic​

It is difficult to reuse/modify existing logic

At the same time, there are usually two extremes:

  • Either the logic is written completely from scratch for each module (with possible repetitions in the existing codebase)
  • Either there is a tendency to transfer all-all implemented modules to shared folders, thereby creating a large dump of modules from it (where most are used only in one place)

Examples:

  • "I have N implementations of the same business logic in my project, for which I still pay"
  • "There are 6 different components of the button/pop-up/... In the project"
  • "Dump of helpers"

Requirements​

Therefore, it seems logical to present the desired requirements for an ideal architecture:

note

Wherever it says "easy", it means "relatively easy for a wide range of developers", because it is clear that it will not be possible to make an ideal solution for absolutely everyone

Explicitness​

  • It should be easy to master and explain the project and its architecture to the team
  • The structure should reflect the real business values of the project
  • There must be explicit side effects and connections between abstractions
  • It should be easy to detect duplicate logic without interfering with unique implementations
  • There should be no dispersion of logic throughout the project
  • There should not be too many heterogeneous abstractions and rules for a good architecture

Control​

  • A good architecture should speed up the solution of tasks, the introduction of features
  • It should be possible to control the development of the project
  • It should be easy to expand, modify, delete the code
  • The * decomposition and isolation of** functionality must be observed
  • Each component of the system must be easily replaceable and removable

Adaptability​

  • A good architecture should be applicable to most projects
    • With existing infrastructure solutions
    • At any stage of development
  • There should be no dependence on the framework and platform
  • It should be possible to easily scale the project and the team, with the possibility of parallelization of development
  • It should be easy to adapt to changing requirements and circumstances

See also​