Software Architecture with C# 12 and .NET 8 E-Book

Gabriel Baptista

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1092

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Software Architecture with C# 12 and .NET 8 puts high-level design theory to work in a .NET context, teaching you the key skills, technologies, and best practices required to become an effective .NET software architect.
This fourth edition puts emphasis on a case study that will bring your skills to life. You’ll learn how to choose between different architectures and technologies at each level of the stack. You’ll take an even closer look at Blazor and explore OpenTelemetry for observability, as well as a more practical dive into preparing .NET microservices for Kubernetes integration.
Divided into three parts, this book starts with the fundamentals of software architecture, covering C# best practices, software domains, design patterns, DevOps principles for CI/CD, and more. The second part focuses on the technologies, from choosing data storage in the cloud to implementing frontend microservices and working with Serverless. You’ll learn about the main communication technologies used in microservices, such as REST API, gRPC, Azure Service Bus, and RabbitMQ. The final part takes you through a real-world case study where you’ll create software architecture for a travel agency.
By the end of this book, you will be able to transform user requirements into technical needs and deliver highly scalable enterprise software architectures.

Leseprobe

Software Architecture with C# 12 and .NET 8

Fourth Edition

Build enterprise applications using microservices, DevOps, EF Core, and design patterns for Azure

Gabriel Baptista

Francesco Abbruzzese

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Software Architecture with C# 12 and .NET 8

Fourth Edition

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First published: November 2019

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Third edition: March 2022

Fourth edition: February 2024

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I could not be more grateful to my father, João Virgilio, who never doubted my potential and stands by me through everything. I would also like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my dear wife, Denise, and my children, Murilo and Heitor, who drive me to evolve and improve every single day.

– Gabriel Baptista

To my beloved parents, to whom I owe everything, thank you very much. A special thanks to the whole Packt team and the reviewers, whose invaluable feedback greatly enhanced this edition of the book.

– Francesco Abbruzzese

Contributors

About the authors

Gabriel Baptista is a tech manager who leads various teams across a diverse range of projects using the Microsoft platform for industry and retail. Also an Azure specialist, he is responsible for designing a SaaS platform in partnership with Microsoft. In addition, he is a computing professor, has published many papers, and taught subjects such as software engineering, development, and architecture. He has also spoken at many global tech conferences over the past few years and co-founded SMIT, a software development company, and SmartLoad, the first cargo mobility insurtech in Brazil.

Francesco Abbruzzese has dedicated his entire life to his two great passions: software and powerlifting. He is the author of the Blazor Controls Toolkit library and contributed to the diffusion and evangelization of the Microsoft web stack since the first .NET version. His company, Mvcct Team, offers web applications, tools, and services for web technologies. His last product, SimpleProcess, is sophisticated Blazor and .NET microservices-based process management software. He has moved from working on AI systems for financial institutions to top-10 video game titles such as Puma Street Soccer.

About the reviewers

Kieran Foot is the lead software developer at ConnX Business Solutions Ltd, a small company based in the UK specializing in stock control and bespoke system integrations.

Having always had a thirst for knowledge, Kieran embarked on his software development journey in his early teens. He started with QBASIC and navigated through ASM, C, C++, and VB before finding his niche in C#.

He’s passionate about delving into the .NET framework and sharing his discoveries, notably with the Packt Discord community. Kieran has also contributed to the book Apps and Services with .NET8 published by Packt, showcasing his commitment to both learning and teaching in the tech world.

I would like to thank the team at Packt for their kindness, guidance, and encouragement whilst on my journey as a new book reviewer.

Alexander Christov brings over 35 years of experience as a programmer and IT specialist, with a specific focus on desktop and web applications. His career began in 1984 at Infos, where he programmed on one of the initial four IBM PCs imported during the communist regime.

In his pursuit of excellence, Alexander has consistently pushed the boundaries of .NET technology, with a particular emphasis on the C# language. He transitioned from WebForms to MVC, then to .NET Core MVC, and is currently focused on .NET 8.

In a significant shift, he has chosen Blazor over JavaScript for front-end development.

Alexander’s drive to develop versatile web applications has led him to work on extendable systems, culminating in the creation of CoreXF.

Currently, he manages his own consulting company, Code Solidi, and has been working closely with 100Programmers, a consulting agency and software development company based in London.

Learn more on Discord

To join the Discord community for this book – where you can share feedback, ask questions to the authors, and learn about new releases – follow the QR code below:

https://packt.link/SoftwareArchitectureCSharp12Dotnet8

Contents

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Get in touch

Understanding the Importance of Software Architecture

What is software architecture?

Creating an Azure account

Software development process models

Reviewing traditional software development process models

Understanding the waterfall model principles

Analyzing the incremental model

Understanding agile software development process models

Scaling agile throughout a company

Gathering the right information to design high-quality software

Understanding the requirements gathering process

Detecting exact user needs

Analyzing requirements

Writing the specifications

Understanding the principles of scalability, robustness, security, and performance

Reviewing the specification

Using design techniques as a helpful tool

Design Thinking

Design Sprint

Common cases where the requirements gathering process impacts system results

Case 1 – my website is too slow to open that page!

Understanding backend caching

Applying asynchronous programming

Dealing with object allocation

Getting better database access

Case 2 – the user’s needs are not properly implemented

Case 3 – the usability of the system does not meet the user’s needs

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Non-Functional Requirements

Technical requirements

Enabling scalability, availability, and resiliency with Azure and .NET 8

Creating a scalable web app in Azure

Vertical scaling (scaling up)

Horizontal scaling (scaling out)

Creating a scalable web app with .NET 8

Performance issues that need to be considered when programming in C#

String concatenation

Exceptions

Multithreading environments for better results – dos and don’ts

Software usability: how to design effective user interfaces

Designing fast selection logic

Selecting from a huge number of items

Interoperability with .NET 8

Tip – creating a service in Linux

Achieving security by design

List of practices for achieving a safe architecture

Authentication

Sensitive data

Web security

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Managing Requirements

Technical requirements

Introducing Azure DevOps

Managing system requirements in Azure DevOps

Epic work items

Feature work items

Product Backlog items/User Story work items

Azure DevOps repository

Package feeds

Test Plans

Pipelines

Usage

Introducing GitHub projects

Summary

Questions

Best Practices in Coding C# 12

Technical requirements

The simpler your code, the better a programmer you are

Maintainability index

Cyclomatic complexity

Depth of inheritance

Class coupling

Number of lines of code

Using a version control system

Dealing with version control systems in teams

Writing safe code in C#

try-catch

try-finally and using

The IDisposable interface

.NET 8 tips and tricks for coding

Identifying well-written code

Understanding and applying tools that can evaluate C# code

Applying extension tools to analyze code

Applying SonarAnalyzer

Checking the final code after analysis

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Implementing Code Reusability in C# 12

Technical requirements

Understanding the principles of code reusability

What code reuse is not

What code reuse is

Reusability in the development life cycle

Using .NET 8 for code reuse

Creating a reusable class library

How does C# deal with code reuse?

Object-oriented analysis

Generics

What if the code is not reusable?

I have my libraries. How do I promote them?

Documenting .NET libraries using DocFX

Documenting a web API using Swagger

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Design Patterns and .NET 8 Implementation

Technical requirements

Understanding design patterns and their purpose

Builder pattern

Factory pattern

Singleton pattern

Proxy pattern

Command pattern

Publisher/Subscriber pattern

Dependency Injection pattern

Understanding the design patterns available in .NET

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Understanding the Different Domains in Software Solutions

Technical requirements

What are software domains?

Understanding DDD

Relationships among Bounded Contexts

Entities

Entity-level validation in .NET

DDD entities in .NET

Value objects

Aggregates

Domain events

Common DDD patterns and architectures

Classic layers architecture

Onion architecture

Repository pattern

Unit of work pattern

Classic repository pattern versus DDD aggregates

Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS) pattern

Event sourcing

Command handlers and aggregate events

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Understanding DevOps Principles and CI/CD

Technical requirements

Describing DevOps

Understanding DevOps principles

CI

CD

Risks and challenges when using CI/CD

Disabling continuous production deployment

Incomplete features

An unstable solution for testing

Continuous feedback

Tools to facilitate DevOps implementation

Azure DevOps

GitHub

Application Insights

Test and Feedback

Summary

Questions

Testing Your Enterprise Application

Technical requirements

Understanding unit and integration tests

Automating unit and integration tests

Writing automated (unit and integration) tests

Acceptance tests: writing functional and performance tests

Understanding the basics of test-driven development

Functional tests

Behavior-Driven Development (BDD)

Defining C# test projects in Visual Studio

Using the xUnit test framework

Advanced test preparation and tear-down scenarios

Mocking interfaces with Moq

Automating functional tests in C#

Testing the staging application

Testing the staging application with Selenium

Testing a controlled application

Recording tests with Selenium IDE

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Deciding on the Best Cloud-Based Solution

Technical requirements

Different software deployment models

IaaS and Azure opportunities

Security responsibility in IaaS

PaaS – a world of opportunities for developers

Web apps

SQL databases

Azure Cognitive Services

SaaS — just sign in and get started!

Understanding what serverless means

Comparing IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, and FaaS

Why are hybrid applications so useful in many cases?

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Applying a Microservice Architecture to Your Enterprise Application

Technical requirements

What are microservices?

Microservices and the evolution of the concept of modules

Microservice design principles

The independence of design choices

Independence from the deployment environment

Loose coupling

No chained requests/responses

Containers and Docker

When do microservices help?

Layered architectures and microservices

The presentation layer

When is it worth considering microservice architectures?

How does .NET deal with microservices?

.NET communication facilities

Resilient task execution

Using generic hosts

Visual Studio support for Docker

Analyzing the Docker file

Publishing the project

Azure and Visual Studio support for microservice orchestration

Which tools are needed to manage microservices?

Defining your private Docker registry in Azure

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Choosing Your Data Storage in the Cloud

Technical requirements

Understanding the different repositories for different purposes

Relational databases

NoSQL databases

Document-oriented database

Graph database

Key-value database

Wide-column store database

Redis

Azure storage accounts

Choosing between SQL and NoSQL document-oriented databases

Azure Cosmos DB – an opportunity to manage a multi-continental database

Creating an Azure Cosmos DB account

Creating an Azure Cosmos DB container

Accessing Azure Cosmos DB

Defining database consistency

The Cosmos DB client

The Cosmos DB Entity Framework Core provider

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Interacting with Data in C# – Entity Framework Core

Technical requirements

Understanding ORM basics

Configuring Entity Framework Core

Defining DB entities

Defining the mapped collections

Completing the mapping configuration

Entity Framework Core migrations

Understanding stored procedures and direct SQL commands

Compiled models

Querying and updating data with Entity Framework Core

Returning data to the presentation layer

Issuing direct SQL commands

Handling transactions

Deploying your data layer

How data and domain layers communicate with other layers

Understanding Entity Framework Core advanced features

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Implementing Microservices with .NET

Technical requirements

Communication and data serialization

Efficient and flexible binary serialization

The ProtoBuf language

ProtoBuf serialization

Efficient and flexible RPC

Reliable data-driven asynchronous communication

Distributed transactions

Implementing worker microservices with ASP.NET Core

Implementing microservices with .NET worker services and message brokers

Installing RabbitMQ

RabbitMQ basics

Replacing internal queues with RabbitMQ

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Applying Service-Oriented Architectures with .NET

Technical requirements

Understanding the principles of the SOA approach

SOAP web services

SOAP specifications

Difficulties associated with the standard

REST web services

Service type compatibility rules

REST and native HTTP features

Example of methods in the REST language

The OpenAPI standard

REST service authorization and authentication

API versioning

How does .NET 8 deal with SOA?

SOAP client support

gRPC support

A short introduction to ASP.NET Core

Implementing REST services with ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core service authorization

ASP.NET Core support for OpenAPI

.NET HTTP clients

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Working with Serverless – Azure Functions

Technical requirements

Understanding the Azure Functions app

Consumption plan

Premium plan

The App Service plan

Programming Azure Functions using C#

Listing Azure Functions templates

Maintaining Azure Functions

Azure Durable Functions

Azure Functions roadmap

The decision to use serverless and Azure Functions

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Presenting ASP.NET Core

Technical requirements

Understanding the presentation layers of web applications

Understanding the basics of ASP.NET Core

ASP.NET Core middleware

Loading configuration data and using it with the options framework

Defining the ASP.NET Core pipeline

Defining controllers and ViewModels

Understanding how ASP.NET Core MVC creates the response HTML

Razor Views

Learning the Razor flow of control statements

Understanding Razor view properties

Using Razor tag helpers

Reusing view code

Understanding the connection between ASP.NET Core MVC and design principles

Advantages of the ASP.NET Core pipeline

Server-side and client-side validation

ASP.NET Core globalization

The MVC pattern

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Implementing Frontend Microservices with ASP.NET Core

Technical requirements

Front-ends and micro-frontends

Public web APIs

HTML micro-frontends

Defining the application architecture

Defining the domain layer interface

Defining the domain layer implementation

Defining the application layer

Defining controllers

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Client Frameworks: Blazor

Technical requirements

Comparison of the various types of client technologies

Single-page applications

Progressive applications

Native applications

Cross-platform applications

Blazor WebAssembly architecture

What is a single-page application?

Loading and starting the application

Routing

Blazor pages and components

Component structure

Templates and cascading parameters

Error handling

Events

Bindings

How Blazor updates HTML

Component lifecycle

Blazor forms and validation

Modifying HTML <head> content from Blazor components

Blazor advanced features

References to components and HTML elements

JavaScript interoperability

Globalization and localization

Authentication and authorization

Communication with the server

AOT compilation

Third-party tools for Blazor WebAssembly

.NET MAUI Blazor

What is .NET MAUI?

Developing native applications with Blazor

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Kubernetes

Technical requirements

Kubernetes basics

.yaml files

ReplicaSets and Deployments

StatefulSets

Services

Ingresses

Interacting with Kubernetes clusters

Creating an Azure Kubernetes cluster

Using minikube

Using kubectl

Deploying the demo Guestbook application

Advanced Kubernetes concepts

Requiring permanent storage

Kubernetes secrets

Liveness and readiness checks

Autoscaling

Helm – installing an Ingress Controller

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Case Study

Introducing World Wild Travel Club

User needs and system requirements

Main types of .NET projects used at WWTravelClub

Managing WWTravelClub’s requirements using Azure DevOps

Code standard for WWTravelClub – Dos and don’ts when writing code

Applying SonarCloud to WWTravelClub APIs

Reusing code as a fast way to deliver good and safe software

Understanding the domains of the WWTravelClub application

The WWTravelClub DevOps approach

How to choose your data storage in the cloud

Implementing the destinations/packages database with Cosmos DB

A worker microservice with ASP.NET Core

The specifications and architecture

The storage layer

The application layer

Processing the queued requests

Testing the GrpcMicroservice project with a fake purchase requests generator

A worker microservice based on RabbitMQ

Exposing WWTravelClub packages using Web APIs

Implementing Azure Functions to send emails

First step — creating an Azure queue storage

Second step — creating the function to send emails

Third step — creating the queue trigger function

A frontend microservice

Defining application specifications

Defining the application architecture

Defining the domain layer abstraction

Defining the domain layer implementation

Defining the application layer

Defining controllers and views

Using client technologies

Preparing the solution

Implementing the required ASP.NET Core REST APIs

Implementing the business logic in a service

Implementing the user interface

Adding a Blazor MAUI version

Testing the WWTravelClub application

Connecting to an Azure DevOps repository

Summary

Case Study Extension: Developing .NET Microservices for Kubernetes

Technical requirements

The Tools needed for .NET Kubernetes development

Installing and configuring SQL Server Express

Enabling Kubernetes application debugging with Bridge to Kubernetes

Organizing the development process

gRPC worker microservices revisited

Adding Docker support to GrpcMicroServiceDocker

Moving GrpcMicroServiceDocker to SQL Server Express

Enabling communication among microservices with a Docker virtual network

When to test the application with Minikube

Running your application in Minikube

Remote debugging a Kubernetes application

Summary

Questions

Further reading

Answers

Other Books You May Enjoy

Index

Landmarks

Cover

Index

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1

Understanding the Importance of Software Architecture

We started writing this book in 2018. It has been five years since the publication of the first edition, and the importance of software architecture for creating enterprise applications (EAs) that attend to our customers’ needs has only grown. Besides, technology itself is evolving at a speed that is hard to follow, and for this reason, new architectural opportunities keep emerging. So, we keep saying that the more we build complex and fantastic solutions, the more we need great software architectures to build and maintain them.

We are sure that is the reason why you decided to read this new edition of the book, and this is the reason why we decided to write it. It is not only a matter of how .NET 8 is different from .NET 6, because there are other incredible books that take this approach. It is truly the purpose of delivering to the community a book that can support developers and software architects in the difficult decision of what component to use while designing a solution. For this reason, in this new edition, we have reformulated the way we present all the content.

You will find while reading the chapters of this new edition that you will be given support for understanding the fundamentals and technology topics that are unavoidable when designing enterprise applications using .NET 8, C#, and cloud computing. Most of the examples will use Microsoft Azure, but we will always present this content in a way that you are not locked into a specific cloud platform.

It is important to remind you that it is not a simple task to write about this important subject, which offers so many alternative techniques and solutions. The main objective of this book is not to build an exhaustive and never-ending list of available techniques and solutions but to show how various families of techniques are related, and how they impact, in practice, the construction of a maintainable and sustainable solution. We hope you all enjoy this new journey!

Specifically, in Chapter 1, Understanding the Importance of Software Architecture, we will discuss how the need to keep our focus on creating effective enterprise solutions continuously increases; users always need more new features in their applications. Moreover, the need to deliver frequent application versions (due to a quickly changing market) increases our obligation to have sophisticated software architecture and development techniques.

The following topics will be covered in this chapter:

What software architecture isSome software development process models that may help you as a software architectThe process for gathering the right information to design high-quality softwareDesign techniques for helping in the process of developmentCases where the requirements impact the system results

For this new edition, we have also reformulated the way we will present the case study of the book. You will find it in a single chapter, at the end of the book, where it will be easy for you to understand the whole purpose of its implementation.

The case study of this book will take you through the process of creating the software architecture for a travel agency called World Wild Travel Club (WWTravelClub). The purpose of this case study is to help you understand the theory explained in each chapter and to provide an example of how to develop an enterprise application with Azure, Azure DevOps, GitHub, C# 12, .NET 8, ASP.NET Core, and other technologies that will be introduced in this book.

By the end of this chapter, you will understand exactly what the mission of software architecture is. You will also have learned what Azure is and how to create an account on the platform. You will also have received an overview of software processes, models, and other techniques that will enable you to lead your team.

What is software architecture?

That you are reading this book today is thanks to the computer scientists who decided to consider software development as an engineering area. This happened in the last century, more specifically, at the end of the sixties, when they proposed that the way we develop software is quite like the way we construct buildings. That is why we have the name software architecture. Just as an architect designs a building and oversees its construction based on that design, the main goal of a software architect is to ensure that the software application is implemented well; and good implementation requires the design of a great architectural solution.

In a professional development project, you must do the following things:

Define the customer requirements for the solution.Design a great solution to meet those requirements.Implement the designed solution.Test the solution implementation.Validate the solution with your customer.Deliver the solution in the working environment.Maintain the solution afterward.

Software engineering defines these activities as the software development lifecycle fundamentals. All the theoretical software development process models (waterfall, spiral, incremental, agile, and so on) are somehow related to this cycle. No matter the model you use, if you do not perform the essential tasks in the initial stages of your project, you will not deliver acceptable software as a solution.

The main point about designing great solutions is foundational to the purpose of this book. You must understand that great real-world solutions bring with them a few fundamental constraints:

The solution needs to meet user requirements.The solution needs to be delivered on time.The solution needs to adhere to the project budget.The solution needs to deliver good quality.The solution needs to guarantee safe and effective future evolution.

Great solutions need to be sustainable, and you must understand that there is no sustainable software without great software architecture. Nowadays, great software architecture depends on both modern tools and modern environments to perfectly fit users’ requirements.

For this reason, this book will use some great tools provided by Microsoft. We decided to write the book always following the long-term support (LTS) versions, which is why we are now applying all the examples using .NET 8. This is the second LTS version as a unified platform for software development, which gives us a great opportunity to create fantastic solutions.

Figure 1.1: .NET support

.NET 8 is delivered together with C# 12. Considering the .NET approach of targeting so many platforms and devices, C# is now one of the most used programming languages in the world and runs on everything from small devices up to huge servers in different operating systems (OSs) and environments.

The book will also use Microsoft Azure, which is Microsoft’s cloud platform, where you will find all the components the company provides to build advanced software architecture solutions.

It is worth mentioning that the use of .NET 8 with Azure was just an option chosen by the authors. .NET can work just as well using other cloud providers, and Azure can handle other coding frameworks very well.

To be a software architect, you need to be familiar with these technologies, and many others too. This book will guide you on a journey where, as a software architect working in a team, you will learn how to provide optimal solutions using these tools. Let us start this journey by creating your Azure account.

Creating an Azure account

Microsoft Azure is one of the best cloud solutions currently available on the market. It is important to know that, inside Azure, we will find a selection of components that can help us define the architecture of twenty-first-century solutions.

If you want to check Azure’s current state, structure, and updates in a compact, digestible way, just go to https://azurecharts.com/, developed by Alexey Polkovnikov. The content is continuously updated so you can revisit it to learn, evaluate, or even just have fun with the dozens of Azure components described in this Azure encyclopedia.

This subsection will guide you in creating an Azure account. If you already have one, you can skip this part.

First, go to https://azure.microsoft.com. There, you will find the information you need to start your subscription. Translation to your native language is usually set automatically.Once you have accessed this portal, it is possible to sign up. If you have never done this before, there is a Start free option, so you will be able to use some Azure features without spending any money. Please check the options for free plans at https://azure.microsoft.com/free/.The process for creating a free account is quite simple, and you will be guided by a form that requires you to have a Microsoft account or GitHub account.During the process, you will also be asked for a credit card number to verify your identity and to keep out spam and bots. However, you will not be charged unless you upgrade the account.To finish the assignment, you will need to accept the subscription agreement, offer details, and privacy statement.Once you have finished filling out the form, you will be able to access the Azure portal. As you can see in the following screenshot, the panel shows a dashboard that you can customize, and a menu on the left, where you can set up the Azure components you are going to use in your solution. Throughout this book, we will come back to this screen to set up the components needed to help us create modern software architecture. To find the next page, just select the hamburger menu icon and click on All services:

Figure 1.2: The Azure portal

Once you have created your Azure account, you are ready to find out how a software architect can lead a team to develop software, taking advantage of all the opportunities offered by Azure. However, it is important to keep in mind that a software architect needs to go beyond just technologies because they are expected to define how the software will be delivered.

Today, a software architect not only designs the basis of a piece of software but also determines how the whole software development and deployment process is conducted. The next section will cover some of the most widely used software development paradigms in the world. We will start by describing what the community refers to as traditional software engineering. After that, we will cover the agile models that have changed the way we build software nowadays.

Software development process models

As a software architect, it is important for you to understand some of the common development processes that are currently used in most enterprises. A software development process defines how people in a team produce and deliver software. In general, this process relates to a software engineering theory called the software development process model. Ever since software development was first defined as an engineering process, many process models for developing software have been proposed. Let us review the traditional software models, and then look at the agile ones that are currently common.

Reviewing traditional software development process models

Some of the models introduced in software engineering theory are already considered traditional and obsolete. This book does not aim to cover all of them, but here, we will give a brief explanation of the ones that are still used in some companies – the waterfall and incremental models.

Understanding the waterfall model principles

This topic may appear strange in a software architecture book from 2023, but yes, you may still find companies where the most traditional software process model remains the guideline for software development. This process executes all fundamental tasks in sequence. Any software development project consists of the following steps:

Requirements: where a product requirements document is created, and it is the basis for the software development processDesign: where the software architecture is developed according to the requirementsImplementation: where the software is programmedVerification: where tests are performed in the applicationMaintenance: where the cycle starts again after delivery

Let us look at a diagrammatic representation of this:

Figure 1.3: The waterfall development cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model)

Often, the use of waterfall models causes problems such as delays in the delivery of a functional version of the software and user dissatisfaction due to the distance between expectations and the final product delivered. Besides, in my experience, having application tests start only after the completion of development always feels terribly stressful.

Analyzing the incremental model

Incremental development is an approach that tries to overcome the biggest problem of the waterfall model: the user can test the solution only at the end of the project. The idea of a model following this approach is to give the users opportunities to interact with the solution as early as possible so that they can give useful feedback, which will help during the development of the software.

Figure 1.4: The incremental development cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incremental_build_model)

The incremental model presented in the preceding picture was introduced as an alternative to the waterfall approach. The idea of the model is to run for each increment a set of practices related to software development (communication, planning, modeling, construction, and deployment). Although it mitigated problems related to the lack of communication with the customer, fewer increments were still a problem for big projects because the increments were still too long.

When the incremental approach was used on a large scale – mainly at the end of the last century – many problems related to project bureaucracy were reported, due to the large amount of documentation required. This clunky scenario caused the rise of a very important movement in the software development industry – agile.

Understanding agile software development process models

At the beginning of this century, developing software was considered one of the most chaotic activities in engineering. The percentage of software projects that failed was incredibly high, and this fact proved the need for a different approach to deal with the flexibility required by software development projects.

In 2001, the Agile Manifesto was introduced to the world, and from that time forward various agile process models were proposed. Some of them have survived up until now and are still very common.

The Agile Manifesto has been translated into more than 60 languages. You can check it out at https://agilemanifesto.org/.

One of the biggest differences between agile models and traditional models is the way developers interact with the customer. The message behind all agile models is that the faster you deliver software to the user, the better. This idea is sometimes confusing for software developers who understand this as – Let’s try coding, and that’s all, folks!

However, there is an important observation of the Agile Manifesto that many people do not read when they start working with agile:

Figure 1.5: Manifesto for agile software development

A software architect always needs to remember this. Agile processes do not mean a lack of discipline. Moreover, when you use the agile process, you will quickly understand that there is no way to develop good software without discipline. On the other hand, as a software architect, you need to understand that soft means flexibility. A software project that refuses to be flexible tends to ruin itself over time.

The 12 principles behind agile are foundational to this flexible approach:

Continuously delivering valuable software to satisfy the customer must be the highest priority of any developer.Changing requirements needs to be understood as an opportunity to make the customer more competitive.Use a weekly timescale to deliver software.A software team must be composed of businesspeople and developers.A software team needs to be trusted and should have the correct environment to get the project done.The best way to communicate with a software team is face to face.You can see the greatest software team achievement when the software is really working in production.Agile works properly when it delivers sustainable development.The more you invest in techniques and good design, the more agile you are.Simplicity is essential.The more self-organized the teams are, the better-quality delivery you will have.Software teams tend to improve their behavior from time to time, analyzing and adjusting their process.

Even 20 years after the launch of the Agile Manifesto, its importance and connection to the current needs of software teams remain intact. Certainly, there are many companies where this approach is not fully accepted, but as a software architect, you should understand this as an opportunity to transform practices and evolve the team you are working with.

There are many techniques and models that were presented to the software community with the agile approach. The next subsections will discuss lean software development, extreme programming, and Scrum, so that you can decide as a software architect which ones you might use to improve your software delivery.

Lean software development

After the Agile Manifesto, the approach of lean software development was introduced to the community as an adaptation of a well-known movement in automobile engineering, Toyota’s model for building cars. The lean manufacturing method delivers a high level of quality even with few resources.

Mary and Tom Poppendieck mapped seven lean principles for software development, really connected to agile and the approach of many companies of this century, which are listed here:

Eliminate waste: You may consider waste to be anything that will interfere with the delivery of the real need of the customer.Build quality in: An organization that wants to guarantee quality needs to promote it in processes from the very beginning, instead of only considering it when code is being tested.Create knowledge: All companies that have achieved excellence have a common pattern of generating new knowledge by disciplined experimentation, documenting that knowledge, and guaranteeing that it is spread all over the organization.Defer commitment: Plan decisions at the latest possible moment without causing damage to the project.Deliver fast: The faster you deliver software, the more elimination of waste you have. Companies that compete using time frequency have significant advantages over their competitors.Respect people: Giving reasonable objectives to the team, together with plans that will guide them to self-organize their routine, is a matter of respecting the people that you work with.Optimize the whole: A lean company improves the cycle of value; from the moment it receives a new requirement to the point at which it delivers the software.

Following the lean principles helps a team or company to improve the quality of the features that are delivered to the customer. It also creates a reduction in time spent on features that will not be used by the customer. In lean, deciding the features that are important to the customer guides the team in delivering software that matters, and this is exactly what the Agile Manifesto intends to promote in software teams.

Extreme programming

Just before the release of the Agile Manifesto, some of the participants who designed the document, especially Kent Beck, presented to the world the extreme programming (XP) methodology for developing software.

XP is based on the values of simplicity, communication, feedback, respect, and courage. It was considered later as a social change in programming, according to Beck in his second book about the topic. It certainly promotes a huge change in the flow of development.

XP states that every team should simply do only what it was asked to do, communicating face to face daily, demonstrating the software early to get feedback, respecting the expertise of each member of the team, and having the courage to tell the truth about progress and estimates, considering the team’s work as a whole.

XP also delivers a set of rules. These rules may be changed by the team if they detect something is not working properly, but it is important to always maintain the values of the methodology.

These rules are divided into planning, managing, designing, coding, and testing. Don Wells has mapped XP at http://www.extremeprogramming.org/. Although some of the ideas of the methodology were criticized strongly by many companies and specialists, there are many good practices that are still used nowadays:

Writing software requirements using user stories: User stories are considered an agile approach to describing user needs, together with acceptance tests, which are used to guarantee the correct implementation.Divide software into iterations and deliver small releases: The practice of iterating in software development is implemented by all methodologies aside from waterfall. The fact of delivering faster versions decreases the risk of not meeting the customer’s expectations.Avoid working overtime and guarantee a sustainable velocity: Although this must be one of the hardest tasks a software architect may deal with, overtime indicates that something is not working properly in the process.Keep things simple: While developing solutions, it is quite common to try to anticipate features that the customer would like to have. This approach increases the complexity of the development and the time to market the solution. A different approach will cause high costs, and probably a low level of features that are used in the system you are developing.Refactoring: The approach of refactoring the code continuously is good because it enables the evolution of your software and guarantees the design improvement that will truly be necessary due to the normal technical changes of the platforms you use to develop.Keep the customer always available: If you follow XP, you should have an expert customer inside your team. This is certainly something that is hard to do, but the main idea of this approach is to guarantee that the customer is involved in all parts of development. As another bonus, having the customer close to your team means they understand the difficulties and expertise the team has, enabling an increase in trust between the parties.Continuous integration: This practice is one of the bases of the current DevOps approach. The less difference you have between your personal code repository and the main code repository, the better.Code the unit test first: A unit test is an approach where you program specific code for testing a single unit (class/method) of your project. This is discussed in a current development methodology called Test-Driven Development (TDD). The main goal here is to guarantee that every business rule has its own unit test case.Code must be written to agreed standards: The need to determine standards for coding is connected to the idea that no matter which developer you have working on a specific part of the project, the code must be written so that any of them will understand it.Pair programming: Pair programming is another difficult approach to achieve in every single minute of a software project, but the technique itself – one programmer coding and the other actively observing and offering comments, criticism, and advice – is useful in critical scenarios.Acceptance tests: The adoption of acceptance tests to meet user stories is a good way to guarantee that newly released versions of the software do not cause damage to its current needs. An even better option is to have these acceptance tests automated.

It is worth mentioning that many of these rules are today considered vital practices in different software development methodologies, including DevOps and Scrum. We will discuss DevOps later in this book, in Chapter 8, Understanding DevOps Principles and CI/CD. Let us get into the Scrum model right now.

Getting into the Scrum model

Scrum is an agile model for the management of software development projects. The model comes from lean principles and is one of the more widely used approaches for developing software nowadays.

Please check out this link for more information about the Scrum framework: https://www.scrum.org/.

As you can see in the following figure, the basis of Scrum is that you have a flexible backlog of user requirements (Product Backlog) that needs to be discussed in each agile cycle, called a Sprint. The Sprint goal (Sprint Backlog) is determined by the Scrum Team, composed of the Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Development Team. The Product Owner is responsible for prioritizing what will be delivered in that Sprint. During the Sprint, this person will help the team to develop the required features. The person who leads the team in the Scrum process is called the Scrum Master. All the meetings and processes are conducted by this person.

Figure 1.6: The Scrum process

It is common to apply Scrum together with another agile technique, called Kanban, also developed by Toyota for manufacturing cars and commonly used for software maintenance. The main purpose of Kanban is to enable a visual system to make sure everybody understands what is going on in the product that is being developed. The famous Kanban board is an incredible way to do so, where you define what the team must do, what they are doing, and the things that are already done.

It is important to note that the Scrum process does not discuss how the software needs to be implemented, nor which activities will be done. Again, you must remember the basis of software development, discussed at the beginning of this chapter; Scrum needs to be implemented together with a process model. DevOps is one of the approaches that may help you use a software development process model together with Scrum. Check out Chapter 8, Understanding DevOps Principles and CI/CD, to understand it better.

Scaling agile throughout a company

Today it is quite common to find companies where agility is being practiced and evolving in a good way, considering the results of the techniques presented in the previous sections. The mixture of Scrum, Kanban, and XP, together with the evolution of the maturity of the software development process, has brought good results for companies and we have a world where software development is one of the key strategies for the success of a business.

Some companies naturally need to scale up the number of teams, but the important question in this process is how to evolve without missing agility. And you can be sure that this question may be addressed to you, as a software architect. You may find in SAFe® – Scaled Agile Framework a good answer to this question:

SAFe® for LeanEnterprises is a knowledge base of proven, integrated principles, practices, and competencies for achieving business agility using Lean, Agile, and DevOps.”

– Dean Leffingwell, creator.

© Scaled Agile, Inc.

Based on the core values of alignment, built-in quality, transparency, and program execution, the framework provides a detailed path for delivering products with the agility needed in companies where you have one or more value streams. Its principles enable agility and incremental delivery, system thinking, fast and economic decisions, and mainly, organization around value.