Master software architecture

The good news is that software design is no longer a black art and the field has consolidated on a set of shared ideas as its foundation. Temperament and aptitude help, but it is now possible to teach developers the essentials of architectural design. The bad news is that mainstream developers are just now starting to become aware of these ideas, yet the scale and complexity of systems has been steadily increasing year after year.

Here are some insights to our philosophy:

• Risk-driven architecting. You can do just enough software architecture by focusing on risks and choosing corresponding design techniques. Your designs will vary in detail depending on how risky each area is for this project, perhaps deep on security but light on auditability.
• Democratic approach. Our courses are for developers and architects. Architecture is a kind of software design that all developers should understand, not just architects.
• Emphasis on engineering. Our courses are on how to design software, not on how to facilitate meetings. Soft skills are a compliment to design skills, not a substitute for engineering know-how.
• Practical advice. You will learn techniques that work in practice and learn anti-patterns to watch out for.

Software Architecture and Design Courses at Rhino Research

Course participants will leave with a coherent mental framework of software architecture, helping them to reconcile business needs with implementation issues, identify risks, and successfully design systems.

Courses

We offer a set of interlocking classes designed to suit your needs. The shorter the course, the more general the intended audience. Combining the two 3-day architecture courses yields the same content as the 5-day marathon course. Splitting the training is recommended so that participants have an opportunity to try out the new techniques (and generate questions) before the advanced material.

The lectures in the 3- and 5-day courses contain a running example and comprise about 60% of course time. The remaining 40% are in-depth exercises designed to reinforce key concepts.

Here’s a review of a class in Houston.