Part I. Mechanics

Evolutionary architecture consists of broad areas of inquiry: mechanics and structure.

The mechanics of evolutionary architecture concern the engineering practices and verification that allow an architecture to evolve, which overlap architectural governance. This covers engineering practices, testing, metrics, and a host of other moving parts that make evolving software possible. Part I defines and presents numerous examples of the mechanics of evolutionary architecture.

The other aspect of Building Evolutionary Architectures concerns the structure or topology of software systems. Do some architecture styles better facilitate building systems that are easier to evolve? Are there structural decisions in architecture that should be avoided to make evolution easier? We answer these and other questions in Part II, which concerns structuring architecture for evolution.

Many of the facets of building evolutionary architectures combine both mechanics and structure; Part III of the book is titled “Impact.” It includes many case studies, provides advice, and covers patterns and antipatterns as well as other considerations architects and teams need to be aware of to make evolution possible.