Architecture before code

Regardless of how you develop code, regardless of the fact you might or might not have implemented an agile way of working, fully embraced DevOps and regardless of the fact you develop traditional or cloud native solutions some rules still apply.

Something that surprises me again and again is that some companies tend to forget the “architecture before code” or “think before doing” rules. I know it is tempting, even very tempting, to dive into writing code first to solve a problem however over the years I have learned the hard way that that is not the right way of developing enterprise grade code and solutions.

Why do we do things?
One of the most fundamental questions is always; “why do we do things”. The answer depends on the type of organisation you work for. The goal for commercial organisations will differ from the goal of a government organisation. Even though the business goals differ in general the reason why solutions, code, will be developed is to support the business. The goal is almost never, “because developers think it is cool” or at least it should not be the goal in the general.

Find your true problem.
A second part which is often overlooked is finding the true problem to solve. Finding the true problem is challenging and sometimes leads into directions you did not think of at first hand.

Taking some time to understand the problem space, finding the real problem before thinking about coding will help in ensuring you solve the…