7.6 For Further Reading

The Evolutionary Delivery Life Cycle is cited as the "best of breed" of various software development life-cycle models in [McConnell 96]. It is intended to support organizations that have time-to-market pressures with prioritized functionality, as it allows any iteration of a product to be a release. When combined with the construction of a skeletal system and attention to the uses structure, the features in a product release can be implemented so as to maximize market impact.

Christopher Alexander's seminal and innovative work on design patterns for architecture (the house-building kind) served as the basis for the work on software design patterns. [Alexander 77] is essential reading to gain an intuitive understanding of what design patterns are all about. (They are also useful if you plan to build a house one day.)

The most often cited authors on software design patterns are the so-called gang of four [Gamma 95]. [Buschmann 96] documents a set of architectural styles as design patterns, thus bridging these two important conceptual areas.

The Mythical Man-Month [Brooks 95] is required reading for any software engineer, and his revised version discusses the virtues and advantages of architecture-based iterative development, especially as practiced by Microsoft.

[Bosch 00a] provides an architectural design method that differs from ADD by first considering division to achieve functionality and then transforming this division to achieve other qualities.

The Rational Unified Process is described in [Kruchten 00]. [Cusumano 95] provides a detailed description of Microsoft's development practices.