What is Architecture

The word architect, and architecture are thrown around a lot and are frequently misused. There a frameworks, methodologies, classifications that get into extreme detail on what architecture is.  Understanding what architecture means is valuable to excel in a current architect role or for use in career planning and development. The following distills a variety of sources such as Zachman and TOGAF into a more pragmatic summary of architecture.

Architecture (noun)

Units of technology have defined sets of architectural elements. These elements can be applied at any level from a macro / enterprise perspective, down to the view of a simple utility. All technology units contain the following architectural elements.

• Scope Vision Mission Purpose
• Business Process and Models
• Information Architecture (Applications)
• Technologies
• Operation

Architecture (verb)

The practice of architecture is applied with multiple perspectives. Each perspective takes into account the elements from the others, yet has a unique focus and function.

• Enterprise Architecture
  • Strategy & Direction
    • Mission / Vision
  • Guidance & Governance
    • Architectural Principles
    • Architectural Processes
• Domain Architecture
  • Knowledge Management
  • Run Time / Operation
• Solution Architecture
  • Tactical
  • Project

Code Quality with Eclipse Plugins

Tech leads are continually challenged with identifying and governing code quality. The common response is to look to test coverage as a measure of quality. Previously I was challenged to monitor code and architectural quality for over 50 developers both on and offshore. The shear amount of code made manual reviews a nightmare. While had reports on coverage it became apparent that the quality of the tests themselves  was also in question. It was time for a more automated review of quality.

After reviewing a series of tools and working through various industry best practices, here is the list of tools I ended up relying on regularly.

Automatically Format on Save

• FormatOnSave (http://ejp.sourceforge.net/formatonsave/update/)

The standard fare

• PMD (http://pmd.sf.net/eclipse/)
• Checkstyle (http://eclipse-cs.sourceforge.net/update)

Often Overlooked

• Find Bugs (http://findbugs.cs.umd.edu/eclipse)
• Enerjy (http://update.enerjy.com/eclipse)

Code Coverage

• Coverclipse (http://coverlipse.sourceforge.net/update)
• EclEmma (http://update.eclemma.org)

Focus on the important code

• JDepend (http://andrei.gmxhome.de/eclipse/)
• Metrics Plugin (http://metrics.sourceforge.net/update)

There are a few really good articles to help you get up and running with these

Check out:

Andrew Glover: In Pursuit of code quality

• In pursuit of code quality: Don’t be fooled by the coverage report
• In pursuit of code quality: Monitoring cyclomatic complexity
• In pursuit of code quality: Code quality for software architects

Metrics

• Metrics Plugin

Use the tools available to analyze faster and make your code stronger.

FEEDBACK: Let me know if there are other tools or resources that make your life easier.

Bite Size: Code Review with Jupiter Plugin

Jupiter is an eclipse plug-in designed specifically to coordinate code reviews across teams. The plug-in provides a basic procedure for managing the code review process. I’ve posted a document on Scribd that describes how to use this great tool to manage your code review processes.

View Code Review with Jupiter on Scribd

Bite Size: Refactoring in Eclipse

IDEs offer many tools that speed up the development process. Among the many features in eclipse for coding are a series of commands for refactoring code. Understanding how to quickly utilize these commands will dramatically speed up your development process.

• Display Available Refactor Commands (Alt+Shift+T)
• Rename (Alt+Shift+R)
• Extract to Local Variable (Alt+Shift+L)
• Extract to Method (Alt+Shift+M)
• Change Method Signature (Alt+Shift+Y)
• Undo Refactoring (Ctrl+Z)