If you are one of those people who ignore prefaces and start with the first chapter, not so fast ! Go back and start with the preface. It contains important background information. If you have read the preface and you are still reading, you are probably doing so because you believe that your software IT structure is a mess. If it weren't a mess, you would have no reason for learning about software fortresses . The primary goal of the software fortress model is to bring order to the IT mess. I have some good news for you. Your IT structure is probably not as bad as you think. One of the benefits of the software fortress model is that you have probably been following it fairly closely all along. You just haven't been following it closely enough. Hopefully the gap between where you are and where you need to go is not too big. Let's see how close you are to following the software fortress model. Take the following quiz, answering yes for each statement that describes your situation, and no for each statement that does not apply to you. Every yes answer brings you one step closer to the model, but also one step closer to the need to be following the model with a little more rigor. Here's the quiz:
Give yourself one point for each yes answer. How did you do? If you scored a 5 or higher, good news! You are already using many of the principles of software fortresses. Now you just need to add a few tweaks. The rest of this book is about those tweaks. So keep reading! As you read through this book, you will notice a large number of acronyms and technical terms. Those that are part of the software fortress model are always defined in this book. But if you run into a term that is unfamiliar, whether from the software fortress model or elsewhere, use the glossary at the end of the book. The glossary includes every technical definition and acronym used in this book. |