Design Visualization: Smoke and Mirrors (slides)

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Design Visualization: Smoke and MirrorsRuth Malan




Imagine this slide is M.C. Escher’s Day and Night


Where To• Architecture• Visual (in) Design• Design Intention:Reflection


Smoke (Intention) and Mirrors (Reflection)


Intention:Reflection• INTENTION, n. The mind's sense of the prevalence

of one set of influences over another set; an effect whose cause is the imminence, immediate or remote, of the performance of an involuntary act.

• REFLECTION, n. An action of the mind whereby we obtain a clearer view of our relation to the things of yesterday and are able to avoid the perils that we shall not again encounter.

• Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Source: Devil’s Dictionary


Architecture: W(h)at?Software architecture refers to the high level structures of a software system, the discipline of creating such structures, and the documentation of these structures. It is the set of structures needed to reason about the software system. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations.-- wikipedia/Clements et al


System: What?“A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something”-- Donella Meadows


Architecture: What?Software architecture refers to the high level structures of a software system, the discipline of creating such structures, and the documentation of these structures. It is the set of structures needed to reason about the software system. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations.-- wikipedia/Clements et al



"All architecture is design but not all design is architecture.Architecture represents the significant design decisions that shape a system, where significant is measured by cost of change."

-- Grady Booch, blog post, March 2, 2006

Architecture: Again?


from Olaf Zimmermann’s presentation at SATURN 2010

Architecture: Decisions!




-- Grady Booch, blog post, March 2, 2006



"Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones."

-- Herbert Simon

Design?

Image source: Pittsburg Post Gazette Archives@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015



"The engineer, and more generally the designer, is concerned with how things ought to be - how they ought to be in order to attain goals, and to function."

-- Herbert Simon

Design?



We design to get more what we* want.

* For some value of we (tbd)

Design?




-- @Grady_Booch, blog post, March 2, 2006



Architecturally Significant?

Join the conversation on Twitter:@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Is this the part where we get to talk about Technical Wisdom?!

[insert obligatory Yoda image]


Image source: zoranphoto.deviantart.com@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Is this the part where we get to talk about Technical Wisdom?!


Source: HandbookOfSoftwareArchitecture.com@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

"the architecture of a system is the naming of the most significant design decisions that shape a system, where we measure significant by cost of change and by impact upon use."

– @Grady_Booch




Decisions that shape a system • give form to the system• set direction; constrain; bring

integrity, consistency and unifying aesthetic to the system

Cost of change

Impact upon use




Structurally significant• Organizing structure• Architecturally significant

mechanisms• Structural integrity and sustainability

Strategically significant• game shapers and game changers



ArchitectureArchitecture enables and constrains

Minimalist

— Dana Bredemeyer


Appeal to Authority“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves – in their separate, and individual capacities.” – Abraham Lincoln

Image source: wikipedia@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015


ArchitectureDecisions that must be made from a system perspective• across boundaries


Intentional and Emergent

source: HandbookOfSoftwareArchitecture.com@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

“Every software-intensive system has an architecture. In some cases that architecture is intentional, while in others it is accidental. Most of the time it is both, born of the consequences of a myriad of design decisions made by its architects and its developers over the lifetime of a system, from its inception through its evolution.” – @Grady_Booch


Image source: ibm.com@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Visual Design


An Engineer!


Investigating and developing theory: structure and dynamics

Leonardo Da Vinci Notebooks@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015


Capturing and exploring designs of mechanisms



Copying (a good thing)


Inventions — By Thinking!

Image source: wikipedia.@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Among the inventions credited with passing into general practical use are • the strut bridge, • the automated bobbin

winder, • the rolling mill, • the machine for testing the

tensile strength of wire and • the lens-grinding machine


Sketching• To observe (more attentively)• To study, think, reason,

to puzzle things out• To record

• to think longer, harder• to show, to teach

• To invent, to combine,to make (new) connections

• To test ideas• thought experiments

• To persuade



i Pencil“That is right, a pencil is one of the best eyes” – Louis Agassiz


Anatomy“First of all, as a sculptor, engineer, architect, he had an intuitive understanding of form — when he dissected a body, he could understand in a very fluid way how the different parts of the body fit together, worked together. And then, having made that understanding, as a supreme draftsman, he was able to record his observations and discoveries in drawings of such lucidity, he’s able to get across the form, the structure to the viewer”-- Martin Clayton, Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist

Image source: Royal Collection © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015


Visualization in Medicine Today

Brain Scans: peer inside your head – while you’re alive

Image source: Oxford Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain, Oxford University.@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015



Brain Scans: peer inside your head – while you’re alive and thinking!

[This fMRI scan shows the areas of the brain active when you tell a lie.]

Image source: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/.@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015



Brain Scans: revealing the brain’s pathways

Image source: Tyszka, et al. The Journal of Neuroscience 2011.@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015


Image source: wikpedia@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Visual processing

Design for Visual Processing


Source: https://github.com/EnterpriseQualityCoding/FizzBuzzEnterpriseEdition@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

code is visual

Visual Design

;-)


Code is design!



"An airplane can contain some six million lines of software code

equivalent to a three-story-high pile of books"

— Source: IBM Rational

Code as Design



“The code is the truth” — Sam Guckenheim

“The code is the truth, but not the whole truth” — Grady Booch

3 stories, and it’s not even the whole truth?!

Code as Design



Hard to wrap our arms around quite so much truth- understanding- communication- change- interactions

Code as Truth



Missing key truths- context- big picture- rationale- alternatives (ruled out)

System properties- emergent from relationships- context dependent

Code is


Code is design! But…“we need good top level design”

www.developerdotstar.com/mag/articles/reeves_13yearslater.html


Why We Model• To abstract• To reason

• To show• To test

• To document• To transform

To address wicked problems:To deal with complexity- - buffer overflow!

To work together- - shared thought-space

To communicate-- explain, defend, preserve


Abstractions“As programmers we deal with abstractions all the time and we have to invent them in order to solve our problems” Michael Feathers


Cohesion


Parts Flying in Formation


System: What?“A system is an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something”-- Donella Meadows


Visual: Good forExploring Relationships

• Explore and express relationships

• Structural• Causal• Temporal

• Make connections


At Heart of Architecture: structure and relationships

Posit structure

Explore behavior

Revise structure


At Heart of Architecture: structure and relationships

Posit structure

Explore behavior

Revise structure

PatternsMetaphorsExperienceExisting stuff

Sequence,Activity,CommunicationDiagrams,State charts,Ad hoc diagramsHow will this work?


•Cohesive responsibilities (separation of concerns)•Balanced distribution of responsibilities

Posit responsibilities

Refine as explore behavior and different views

PatternsMetaphorsExperienceExisting stuff

Factor and Refactor“The responsibility of architecture is the architecture of responsibility.” -- Jan van Til


Architecture: What?Software architecture refers to the high level structures of a software system, the discipline of creating such structures, and the documentation of these structures. It is the set of structures needed to reason about the software system. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations.-- wikipedia/Clements et al


Image source: stylonica.com

Technical WisdomCan haz?


Technical Wisdom“A change of perspective is worth 80 IQ points” – Alan Kay


(Change) Perspective

http://www.xkcd.com/32/



Programmingas Theory Building


Design Arguments“The Federalist Papers are arguments that support different parts of the design of the Constitution. And the Constitution itself is a set of principles for building a very complex dynamic structure that should last for centuries”– Alan Kay

Source: Powerful Ideas Need Love Too!



“it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, [..], to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.” Federalist No.1

Reflection and Choice



Mechanisms?The Federalist Papers, No. 51 addresses • checks and balances • separation of powers


How does it even?


LMAX Disruptor Mechanism

Source: Martin Fowlerhttp://martinfowler.com/articles/lmax.html



Cockburn’sHexagonal Architecture


Image: Ferguson, Engineering and the Mind’s Eye@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Coincidence?ABATIS, n. [1.] Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.


68

What do you do when you don’t want a fox in your hen house?


69

Watchdog



Mechanism Designs• Federalist Papers

• Da Vinci Notebooks

• Design Patterns



Architecture is super hella important decisions


Technical WisdomCan haz?




"The engineer, and more generally the designer, is concerned with how things ought to be - how they ought to be in order to attain goals, and to function."

-- Herbert Simon

How things ought to be


Technical WisdomMore??



“I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.”

Benjamin Franklin


Technical WisdomPlease, oh please?




“If you haven’t thought of three possibilities, you haven’t thought enough.” – @JerryWeinberg

Rule of Three


Extraordinary Moment“What, at this extraordinary moment, is the most important thing for me to be thinking about?” — Buckminster Fuller


vv v v

What(system view)

HowWhat(user view)

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

STRUCTURALBEHAVIORALCAPABILITIESCONTEXT

Why How well

FUNCTIONAL QUALITIES

System Design Intent (what should be)


Design: Structure• Elements and relationships


Structure“box and line”


Structure • Relation to host topology

• containers (Simon Brown)

• deployment view in UML


BehaviorAd hocUML-ishUML• sequence• communication• activity• timing


vv v v

What(system view)

HowWhat(user view)

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE


Why How well



mechanisms


Extraordinary Moment“What, at this extraordinary moment, is the most important thing for me to be thinking about?” — Buckminster Fuller


System Design Intent(what should be)

System Design Reflection(what is)


Roundtrip Back to Roundtrip Engineering?


Image: Michele Lanza, presentation on slideshare titled “Of Code and Change”


Perhaps we were too literal




What’s architecturally significant??




But… what’s this??

What’s architecturally significant?


vv v v

What(system view)

HowWhat(user view)

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE


Why How well




Design AcrossContext System-in-Context

(use, dev, ops)System

(Ecosystem)

Architecturestructure and mechanisms

“Requirements”design of system

capabilities

Strategyecosystem interventions


Code Wins“Code wins arguments”– Mark Zuckerberg

but are all arguments worth having?


Experiment — on paper!Sketch prototypes and pretendotypes


But soon, and then often



Imagine this slide is M.C. Escher’s Magic Mirror


Cobbler’s Children• Does the software

cobbler’s children have any shoes, or are they still in “research”?

100


VisualizationShiny!• but what’s it

good for?


What How Who

SYSTEM

STATIC DYNAMIC

ORGANIZATION

semantic

dependencyhierarchyElements and relationships


Nest Circles Layout

Flare on Flare


Dependency Structure Matrix

Lattix


Dependency Map

Structure101


What How Who

SYSTEM

STATIC DYNAMIC

ORGANIZATION

What is where?

Elements and relationships

How does it work?

Dependencies/coupling?

Coherence?

Behavior


How WellStructural qualities Behavioral qualities Team qualities

(POLY)METRIC/DASHBOARD

(reflective)

SIMULATIONS/PROJECTIONS

(predictive) experiment predict plan


How Well

Structural qualities Behavioral qualities Team qualities

(POLY)METRIC(reflective)


(predictive) experiment predict plan

City Map: spot structural anomalies like “god” classes


How Well

Structural qualities Behavioral qualities Team qualities

DASHBOARD(reflective)


(predictive)experiment predict plan

TuningFork: spot “hot spots” in performance analysis

XRadar: spot anomalies in code quality across packages


When

POINT-IN-TIME

OVER TIME

Point-in-time versus Evolution


When

POINT-IN-TIME

OVER TIME

Point-in-time versus Evolution: System Structure


When

POINT-IN-TIME

AGE-SENSITIVE

Point-in-time versus Evolution: System Structure


When

POINT-IN-TIME

OVER TIME

Code Map markers: Who is working on what right now

ConcernLinesConcernsover time

Point-in-time versus Evolution: Organization

DeveloperRivers


Locating Tech Debt


Code Looks Like…

a Pollock?


Architecturally Significant, Yes“Developing a sense for code going awry is not a luxury.” -- Yves Reynhout


It has a name?


Illustration: @1957 Disney@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Code as a Crime Scene


Illustration: @1957 Disney@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Code as a Crime Scene

hot spot analysis

— complexity

— change


@SoftArchConf #SoftwareArchitect2015

Smells?

Sensory Journeys (2009-10) project by the artist Christian Nold


Richard I. Cook



What is visualization in design good for?

Design Visualization: Smoke and Mirrors (slides)

Software

Transcript of Design Visualization: Smoke and Mirrors (slides)