Introduction to Architecture: What is architecture?

The pursue of a good understanding of architecture and specially software architecture has been really into my mind for the past few months, and furthermore i have searched the internet for concepts and definitions. only to help get the grasp of what i need to understand. and i found a really good site http://www.codingthearchitecture.com/ it was amazingly simple and very easy in ways this guy defines architecture and inspired by his book which i gladly bought and this website i have decided to write something about it.  

First thing i understood is that you need to understand that architecture in so many ways have the same concept over so many industries whether its software construction..etc

and this whole article is totally applicable to any field architecture is applied to

The word architecture has many different meanings, variations and conceptual definitions searching here and there through friends and internet people seem to have their have these definitions accustomed to what they do or what they need as their work as architects or participants in the architectural phase, and here is a summary of those results,

• The things that are expensive to change

• The things that are difficult to change

• The big picture

• Ability to communicate (abstractions, language, vocabulary)

• A degree of rigidity and solidity

• Systems, subsystems, interactions and interfaces

• The outcome of strategic decisions

• Necessary constraints

• Strategy and vision

• Building blocks

• The system as a whole

• Awareness of environmental constraints and restrictions

• Foundations

• The skeleton/backbone of the product

• An abstract view

• The system as a whole

• The process to achieve a goal

• A blueprint

• Modules, connections, dependencies and interfaces

• Satisfying non-functional requirements/quality attributes

• Everything has “architecture”

Technically there are no end to those really I mean you could up with hundreds and hundreds and still won’t be able to lay your finger on what you are looking for, fortunately for the whole world there are two common themes Architecture as A noun and as A verb

As A Noun

So it can be summed as being about Structure and the decomposition of application into a collection of components and communications , taking into account the whole application as whole, including the foundations and infrastructure services that deal with cross-cutting concerns such as power/water/air conditioning (for a building) or security/configuration/error handling (for a piece of software).

As A Verb

It is about the process, the architecting. So it is defined in terms of what matters or shall I say what is needed to build, make a vision for construction and building and making design decisions and help it to success. So it is just about technical leadership.