What Is Architecture?

The word architecture has widespread use in a variety of contexts. You can get a definition for it from the Oxford English Dictionary or, as far as software is concerned, from the American National Standards Institute/Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ANSI/IEEE) library of standards. In both cases, the definition of architecture revolves around planning, designing, and constructing something—be it a building or a software program. Software architecture is the concrete artifact that solves specific stakeholder concerns—read, specific user requirements.

An architecture doesn't exist outside of a context. To design a software system, you need to understand how the final system relates to, and is embedded into, the hosting environment. As a software architect, you can't ignore technologies and development techniques for the environment of choice—for this book, the .NET platform.