--Originally published at Hackerman's house
This chapter is about how sometimes you don’t know where to start a project or how to approach it. This is something that made I felt identified to; it is usual that at the beginning of a project I spend more time looking at the screen and thinking without any idea of how to start, so I think it was useful to read this chapter.
The things in your application that are really important are architecturally significant, and you should focus on them FIRST.
One of the first advices I found useful was that before you start designing the relations between the parts of the systems you need to have these parts or at least the basics. Architecture isn’t just about the relationships; it’s is also about deciding which parts are more important to create them first. This is where the three Q’s of architecture get into the scene; they help you determine which modules are more important.
Photo by Bill Dickinson
Is it part of the essence of the system?
The essence is the most basic idea of what a system does. The easiest way to determine if a part is essential to the system is imagining the system withouth that feature, if you can’t, the feature is most probably essential.
What the heck does it mean?
This idea was somewhat new to me, because I usually start with the part that I can understand easily. In this case the suggestion is start with the features we don’t completely understand. This allows you to avoid risks around this feature. Understanding it from the beginning can mean that you won’t have problems when you are designing the relation with other parts.
Photo by Thomas Hawk
How the heck do I do it?
This idea is really similar to the one . If you understand how you are going to do that hard task. The whole development process is easier.
