This week I'm synthesizing notes from Michael Pogrebinsky's course on Software Architecture and Design. If you like what you read below, you'll love the course!

When designing a system, especially at higher scales of complexity, it's vital to take the carpenters' motto to heart: "Measure twice, cut once."

Smaller scale projects, such as feature requests for an already existing system, have very clear restraints. The programming language, platform, and infrastructure of the project have already been laid. It only takes a few questions to get clear on what needs to happen when adding a widget to an existing app.

Larger solutions, however, can be daunting with the sheer vastness of options. Any software choice can solve any problem. And, in spite of what the discourse on forums may lead you to believe, there isn't one correct solution for any problem.

So how do you narrow down your choices? Through requirement gathering!

Requirements As Part of the Solution

A paradigm shift for anyone pivoting from a small scale environment to thinking broadly is understanding that question asking is part of the solution.

The client, sometimes not technical, will have an idea of the problem they want to solve, but will be unclear on the solution. Even if they have an idea of what solution they would like to see implemented, you as the technical authority in the room have to ask clarifying questions to find out if their suggestion will work in your system.

Types of Requirements

To help ensure time is spent asking the right questions, it's helpful to know that there are three types of requirements you can gather:

• Functional Requirements: Features of the system. Think inputs and outputs. Listen for "the system must do this"
  • Generally, these do not determine the architecture. Any architecture can solve any problem.
• Quality Attributes: Non-functional requirements. Deals with performance of the application. Listen for "the system must have".
  • Ex: Scalability, availability, reliability, performance, security. A more comprehensive list here.
  • These dictate the software architecture of our system.
• System Constraints: Limits and boundaries.
  • Ex: Time, staffing, resources. Can also drive architecture design.

Example: CD Dad

Say you're working with a client that is looking to build out an e-commerce platform for musicians. A possible portion of requirements may include the following:

"CD Dad will host albums from independent musicians. When a customer purchases an album, the customer will receive a digital download of the album and the musician will be paid."

So far we've heard the Functional requirements. With given inputs, the system hosts the music. When a customer submits a purchase, they receive the digital downloads.

"Processing uploads should be take no longer than 5 minutes. When an album is purchased, a link should be made available immediately through email."

The statement above relates to performance of the app, so this is a quality attribute.

"The system should support mp3, wav, and aif file formats. A team of a dozen full time engineers will be responsible for maintaining the system."

Now we're talking file formats and engineering support, so we're looking at System Constraints.

The Joy of Constraints

For many engineers, an ideal world is one without constraints. However, limitation breeds creativity. A limit on resources, hands on deck, and time are what enables us to ship code regularly.

In the event that any of this information is missing in your understanding of a system, it's an opportunity to gather more info and clarify what's being built. Doing so will help clear the fog for the next best step.

Many varieties of creative work require a great deal of solitude. Some like software, writing, composing, and art, are often done without an audience when performing.

It's possible to do any creative act collaboratively. But, I've been realizing lately how important it is to intentionally find time for synchronized movement.

The move towards working from home, collaborating with people online, and the flexibility to live and work anywhere is undoubtedly a net positive. It's just that we have to be really intentional about carving out time for connection. Not just being around people, but finding activities where you are "marching in step" with other people.

We are literally wired for it. Jonathan Haidt in The Happiness Hypothesis explores the energizing feeling we get from being in synch:

...rituals that involve repetitive movement and chanting, particularly when they are performed by many people at the same time, help to set up "resonance patterns" in the brains of the participants that make this mystical state more likely to happen.

Oliver Burkeman poses the unique position we're in at this moment in time. Amidst asynchronous work as a writer, he highlights the impact of even ordinary synchronized activity:

I've felt it as a member of a community choir, when the sharp and flat tones of amateur voices combine into a perfection that few of the singers involved could attain on their own... For that matter, I've felt it in settings that are even more mundane—working my monthly shift at the food cooperative, for example, slinging boxes of carts and broccoli onto the conveyor belt, in time with other workers I barely know but whit whom, for a few hours, I share a bond that feels deeper than the one I have with some of my real friends. For a while, it's as if we're participating in the communal rhythms of a monastery, in which the synchronized hours of prayer and labor impart coherence and a sense of shared purpose to the day.

Both books above reference Keeping Together in Time by William McNeill, a whole exploration on synchronized movement across human history.

For men in particular, who seem to have a knack for distancing themselves in their relationships (guilty as charged), those moments of connection happen in spaces that require coordination. Here's James Hollis on the subject in Under Saturn's Shadow:

There are few things more rewarding than for a shortstop, deep in the hole, to turn and throw the ball toward second, and see the second baseman intersect base and ball at the exact moment. This is less about practice than about the integration of spirit, the communion of soul. Perhaps this rare sense of oneness is possible in part because the outer challenge occasions a transcendence of the individual ego to serve the joint purpose...

No matter what, true solitude is required and desired. Nourishment is given, soil is enriched, and roots take hold in solitude. And still, it's a dance.

This morning, I was talking with Miranda about a music workshop from high school. In reminiscing, I came across this passage from The Musician's Soul by choral conductor James Jordan. This touches on that dance quite nicely:

Few of us are fortunate enough to be able to understand the rich alchemy that happens when there is a balance between true solitude and true community in one's musical interactions and one's life interactions. Most of us exist as a wild pendulum that swings almost uncontrollably between loneliness and the crowd. This dynamic inertia manifests itself in the music we make, or rather the music we try to make. As musicians, we constantly and dynamically exist in the atmosphere of a larger community. That large community can be defined as small as one or extended to hundreds. The relationship with an accompanist is community. The relationship with an audience is a community....Human beings communicating directly with one another through 'great things' speak powerfully and with one voice. A musician's soul can be explored individually, but it can only grow and deepen through the nourishment of connectedness at every moment. Without the lifeline between souls, there is no art, and more importantly, perhaps, no real life or living.

Join a cycling class! Make time for pair programingm! Go to a swing dance class! Take up accordion lessons! Especially if you work remotely, find ways to return to the hive and move together.

For creatives, carve out a part of your practice that requires being in the room with other people and creating together. For me, it's playing in a community concert band. For artists, it could be something as simple as painting in a class together.

At the end of the day, we create to be a part of something larger than ourselves. Contributing to a scene, a creative lineage, an industry, a craft, a culture. What could enhance that more than creating in true community?

Listen on Youtube

Because love is the saddest thing when it goes away~

As the crisp autumn air starts to roll in. 🍂

Fond memories of wandering quiet streets late at night. 🌙