http://www.booch.com/architecture/ The Handbook catalogs the software architecture of a large collection of software-intensive systems. en-us Copyright (C) 2000-2005 by Grady Booch http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp#0 http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp Handbook site, I've finished all the pattern pages. Celso is busily tagging all the patterns according to discipline, domain, technology, type, and view (in addition, he's also expecting to enter almost 100 pattern languages). I trust that you'll find this catalog of patterns much more easy to navigate.

Quote of the day:

Life is a process of working out what's not working for you and disentangling yourself from it and trying then not walk into the same thing again. Watching your patterns and correcting them if you can.
Siobhan Fahey

]]> Fri, 5 Dec 2008 16:41:00 MDT http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp#1 http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp
My original Handbook site died unceremoniously about a week ago, while I was traveling. My house sitter was unable to resuscitate the beast, despite my long-distance guidance. Along with the site went my personal email and all the other services associated therein. Upon returning to Colorado, I broke open the case, and sure enough, my power supply had died. The local Apple store could only offer their sympathies (and order a new part for me, which would be days in coming, giving the age of my machine). So, I did a brain transplant on an older dual processor G5 tower, and so my server is back up - but I then made the command decision to retire the old site and direct folks here. The welcome mat is out, you can register (people who have stumbled onto the site have been doing so that past month anyway), but all the old content is not yet here. The blog section is new and improved, the references have been refreshed, and while Celso has moved over all the old patterns content, I have a little programming to do to make it visible. In the meantime, I've done more digs, and - and the urging of many - will finally push some more public content out in the process. Thank you thank you thank you for your patience.

Quote of the day:

There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.
Ken Olson

]]> Tue, 2 Dec 2008 10:13:00 MDT http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp#2 http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp recommended Bill Joy.

President-elect Obama is IMHO one of the more tech-savy politicians, and I see that as a good sign for our industry and the country. His position on a variety of technology issues may be found here.

The whole point of science is to question and investigate and test. If scientists close ranks when they think that they have enough evidence and that they will have more influence if they claim consensus, they have moved from science to politics. Yet if we see that scientists don't maintain scientific values, the basis for their influence in politics is, ironically, destroyed. Even if you want to abandon ethics and sell out for what you see as the greater good, it won't even work.
Ann Althouse

]]> Thu, 6 Nov 2008 10:05:00 MDT http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp#3 http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp
I've been traveling a great deal these past months, with almost two-thirds of my time spent on the road. One of the highlights of my wanderings was speaking at Fortune's BrainstormTech. In our panel on The Future of Code I observed that IBM was a company that had gone through a near-death experience yet had come through to the other side wiser and stronger, that Microsoft was a company undergoing a midlife crisis, and that Google was a company in serious need of adult supervision - at which point Vint Cerf piped up from the audience saying "why do you think they hired me?" Another highlight of these past months was my appointment to the board of trustees for the Computer History Museum.

I'm in the process of rebuilding the Handbook site. Basically, I have a scaling problem: I have far more content below the surface and much more to come than I am able to easily manage with my old infrastructure, so I'm rebuilding the site from the ground up. Sometimes, you've just gotta throw one away.

Quote of the day:

Grief: it is a time in our life when the familiar disappears, we are not who we are, and we are not who we are becoming.
Melody Beattie

]]> Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:37:00 MDT http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp#4 http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp IEEE Software, titled "Successful Software Management Style: Steering and Balance." In this article, Walker points out a number of parallels between software development and movie making. "Software project managers are more likely to succeed if they use techniques that are more like managing a move production than an engineering production." Movies products, Walker notes, are "professionals who regularly create a unique and complex web of intellectual property limited only by vision and creativity." He goes on to say that "a software manager's day-to-day decisions (like those of a movie producer) are dominated by value judgments, cost trade-offs, human factors, macro-economic tends, technology trends, market strengths, and timing."

Quote of the day:

Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
Dorothy Gale

]]> Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:24:00 MDT http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp#5 http://www.booch.com/architecture/blog.jsp IBM TV.

I was particularly taken by Mr. Shatner's comparison of software development and movie making. He noted that 75% of all software projects at Fortune 500 companies fail, 33% are cancelled, and 66% go over budget by more than 200%. How does he know this (as one heckler from the audience asked him)? Well, we gave him those details :-). He went on to note that 90% of all movies fail, 72% of all movies that are started are cancelled, and every movie except the oddball one goes over budget. Mr. Shatner concluded by noting that software development and movie making are "inextricable bound by failure."

Quote of the day:

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.
Erich Fromm

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