The Coming of Software Architecture: A Historical View

Six programmers with experience spanning four decades were interviewed about their use of architecture, or lack thereof, in developing software systems. The data collected included few surprises and a history of hardware and software. The two biggest factors in the use of design are management endorsement and technological sophistication of problems and solutions. The causes and effects of these factors are discussed. 1.0 Introduction Various software development notations and methodologies were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. These include Structured Systems Analysis and Design (SSAD), (Yourdon and Constantine, 1985, De Marco, 1978), Structured Programming (Meyers, 1975), and Object Oriented Programming (Cox, 1984). Although, these methodologies are considered standard today, significant software was written without their help before their introduction. How was this accomplished by developers? Furthermore, even today not all projects are developed using these methodologies. Why? What are developers using in their place? This study attempts to answer these questions by looking at the practices of programmers past and present. 2.0 Methodology 2.1 Procedure Software developers with industrial experience were interviewed for this study. Each interview lasted for approximately 70 minutes. An open ended script was used to guide the process. The script began with questions about the subjects’ educational and professional background. Questions progressed to projects that the subjects had worked on with an emphasis on the design or architecture in the process or software. The direction that these questions followed was determined by the nature of the projects. Subjects were also asked about various resources that they found useful.