Software Architecture Metrics

by Christian Ciceri, David Farley, Neal Ford

Software architecture metrics are key to the maintainability and architectural quality of a software project and they can warn you about dangerous accumulations of architectural and technical debt early in the process. In this practical book, leading hands-on software architects share case studies to introduce metrics that every software architect should know.

This isn't a book about theory. It's more about practice and implementation, about what has already been tried and worked. Detecting software architectural issues early is crucial for the success of your software: it helps mitigate the risk of poor performance and lowers the cost of repairing those issues. Written by practitioners for software architects and software developers eager to explore successful case studies, this guide will help you learn more about decision and measurement effectiveness.

Through contributions from 10 prominent practitioners, this book shares key software architecture metrics to help you set the right KPIs and measure the results. You'll learn how to:

Measure how well your software architecture is meeting your goals
Choose the right metrics to track (and skip the ones you don't need)
Improve observability, testability, and deployability
Prioritize software architecture projects
Build insightful and relevant dashboards

Genres: Technology, Architecture, Software, Programming, Computer Science, Nonfiction, Technical

215 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[Dinko · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a really badly written book with very little value. Actually it is just a bunch of stuff written by a dozen of authors and printed together between a cover with a promising name. The book does not deliver on that promise. This book has no head and no tail. There is some useful information though that I will be able to apply at work, but I expected way more for my money (44€ is an arm and leg for this). In one of the chapters, one of the authors mentions how very few software engineering teams measure the level of their software architecture, and this book is not going to contribute to improving that.

The whole book needs to be rewritten from scratch, with a clear chapter structure, and it should provide more information for this price tag. What was that chapter 3 with four pages about?

[Andrey · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not a book in the sense of a continuous story, goal, or desire to give the reader new practices. Just a collection of articles on the topic. Some are useful and interesting, while others are boring and passable. Some of the chapters/articles refer to good books and retell part of the ideas there, for example: "Accelerate," "Building Evolutionary Architectures," and "The Checklist Manifesto."
It would be much better to read those books as an investment of time.

[Asier Marqués · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un libro que empieza muy bien pero pierde profundidad y se enfoca en una visión de alto nivel de sobre diferentes aspectos a metricar.
No es mal libro y tiene referencias interesantes. Quizás abusa demasiado de algunas de ellas.
Quería darle 4, pero me hubiera gustado más profundidad en algunos de sus capítulos.

[Jose Cruz · Rating 4 out of 5]

good information inside

The book explores different kinds of metrics. It’s not a mathematical analysis, it is more introductory with use cases. It looks like a set of articles that you could read in blogs but aggregated in a book.
It has an architecture scope, as the title says, and it brings value if you are new to the use and management of metrics.

[Nilendu Misra · Rating 2 out of 5]

A collection of articles - somewhat all over the place. Though the one with measuring code health with metrics (cyclomatic complexity, indentation depth, churn, growth date, “page rank” among files, cyclic dependency among classes etc) was very informative and acrionable. A few food pointers, especially “Your Code as Crime Scene” that I now have to catch up with!

[Ruslan Diachenko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly dry theory excluding very few chapters. I expected the book to be more practical as it was stated in the preface.

[Denis Romanovsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually, not a bad collection of articles from different authors on the modern approach to software architecture.

[Jascha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Misleading title. It is a collection of completely unrelated articles, most of which repeat the same incredibly basic concepts, over and over.

[Orhan Ozalp · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would be beneficial to read "Building Evolutionary Architectures" before this one since almost all chapters refer to that book.

[Borys Nesterko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got this book in humble bundle, and it totally worth the price of bundle. However wouldn't buy it at a full price tag. Got some interesting ideas to start using them in day to day work.

[Ahmad hosseini · Rating 3 out of 5]

“KPIs and metrics should be guides and enablers, not targets; they’re not meant to dictate behavior! In my experience, if people start to say things like “We are not achieving KPI X or metric Z,” it’s a good indication that the KPI is being used as a target. If you need a target, that’s fine: call it what it is, but don’t use terms like KPI or metric.”
The book has been written by a group of the best software engineers and architects for software developers and architects. This book shares key software architecture metrics to help you set the right KPIs and measure the results. You’ll learn more about decision and measurement effectiveness. Different authors examine different software architecture metrics and share their insight and best practices with you. The book, contrary to the first claim of the book, is somewhat theoretical and the solutions provided in the book are not implemented and you have to create solutions to implement them yourself.
If you don't like theory aspects of software architecture so this book is not for you!