Heuristics for system architecting

Rules and Lesson s learnt by system architects after long experiences which when followed result in sound, stable, practical systems # 1 My favorite system architecting (and other relevant) heuristics --- in no particular order --- #2 Given many parts of a system to be designed/built, do the hard part 1st # 3 All the serious mistakes are made on the very first day # 4 Simplify, simplify, simplify! Probably the most useful heuristics for increasing reliability while decreasing cost & time-to-build # 5 If you can’t explain it in 5 minutes, either you don’t understand it or it does not work # 6 A system will develop & evolve much more rapidly if there are stable intermediate forms than if there Build iteratively; add features gradually # 7 Success is defined by the user, not the builder # 8 It’s more important to know what the customer needs instead of what he says he wants