Software Design Archives

From manufacturing to Software development – what can we learn!

November 6, 2021November 6, 2021Mohamed Sami

The world knows manufacturing since almost the age of human beings on earth by creating different tools to help in their daily living routines. It was not at scale at the time but it is a sort of manufacturing process.

The manufacturing process has been advanced starting with Industry 1.0 until reaching Industry 4.0 with the mix of advanced technology, data & AI to improve the manufacturing process and strengthen the factory of the future with many innovative scenarios of full automation, connected supply chain, predictive maintenance, and others.

Going deeper into the manufacturing process, I found that there are lots of similarities in objectives, concerns, and challenges with the software engineering development process. This beauty of knowing the similarities and differences can make us learn how we can use the combined knowledge of two different industries to bring more innovation and efficiency for both.

In this article, I discuss from my observation what are similarities and the learning between both processes. To make good anatomy of the two, let us see them from different aspects

How to visualize the software using effortless diagrams!

May 7, 2018August 18, 2019Mohamed Sami

Software visualization is essential in the software development lifecycle to realize how the software will be conceptualized, visualized, structured, understood, and implemented. Software visualization can be defined as the art and science of generating visual representations for the various aspects of the software.

The purpose of the visualization is setting a common understanding of the system for all stakeholders, for example, business users, development team, architects, designers, …etc.

It is a part of Software architecture and design which usually needs problem-solving and planning. This may include both a low-level component, algorithm design, and a high-level architecture design. The image below can summarize the types of visualization in the software architecture, for example, if we would like to present a system of two components, it can be visualized by text visualization or graphical visualization. I think all of us can conclude that the software requirements specifications document can be a textual visualization of the system. I think yes but not only as part of this textual presentation should include the design decisions and may have pseudo code in some parts.

In this article, we will discuss different types of graphical visualization for the software that are commonly used in the software development lifecycle. Therefore, We will discuss the following diagrams and their usage:

Context Diagram
Use Case Diagram
Activity Diagram
Class Diagram
Entity-Relationship Model

However, this article will not discuss how to draw these diagrams and each diagram modeling language as there are a lot of resources available online for describing the modeling and notation standards.

Architectural Styles, Architecture Patterns, Design Patterns, and Language Idioms

July 2, 2017November 10, 2018Mohamed Sami

If you attended any of Software Architectures classes or read any books regarding the Software Architecture, it is common to have buildings Architecture as an analogy to understand the main concept of the Software Architecture. We will use the same here to understand what is the style and what is the pattern

An architectural style is characterized by the features that make a building or other structure notable and historically identifiable. A style may include such elements as form, a method of construction, building materials, and regional character. Most architecture can be classified as a chronology of styles which changes over time reflecting changing fashions, beliefs, and religions, or the emergence of new ideas, technology, or materials which make new styles possible.

What do you need to know about the Software Development phases

June 13, 2017November 10, 2018Mohamed Sami

Software development lifecycle models have different strategies and methodologies for the software development process and I wrote about the different types of development models, please review this article for more information, we also discussed how to select the most suitable model based on your project context.

Regardless, what model you have selected, these models are sharing mostly the same development phases with different arrangements, a more or a less phase. Furthermore, they can be implemented in an iterative and incremental model.

In this article, we will discuss the most common phases across all SDLC models. I will add other articles to discuss each phase in details 🙂 Read more →

Architectural Design Decisions

April 29, 2017November 10, 2018Mohamed Sami

There is no doubt how the architecture is important to shape the solution and define its characteristics in the different architecture domains, and how this solution will be adaptable and dynamic to absorb new business needs and handle different stakeholders’ concerns.

In most architecture development processes, different decisions are taken in the different architecture domains. Architects may make different decisions, such as choosing a specific component, in the conceptual architecture and follow a specific architecture pattern.

Difference between Software Architecture, Software Structure, and Software Design

January 5, 2013December 16, 2020Mohamed Sami

Introduction

Over the past 10-15 years, Software architecture has been widely spread in the software engineering community, To the extent that there are currently many career positions for software architect like Technical Architect and Chief Architect. Also, Architecture has involved in many different domains, for example, the architecture used to describe and refer to the internal structure of microprocessor and structure of machines or Network. For that matter, Trying to find one widely accepted definition for software architecture is not easy, and this issue has been introduced in many books when the authors start defining software architecture.