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The Best Software Architecture Books of All Time
Becoming an expert — one book at a time
4 min readDec 22, 2020
Software Architects are primarily responsible for maintaining the conceptual integrity of a software system. In order to become one of them, you need both theoretical and practical exposure to technology and business domains. With this curated list of all-time best Software Architecture books, you will be able to significantly speed up your learning process.
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#1 — Get your hands dirty with some clean coding
#2 — Build state-of-the-art system designs
#3 — Understand the software building culture & delivery processes
Some Advice on Books, Patterns, and Experts
- Don’t reinvent the wheel — The great engineers in the past (maybe with very old technology), might have solved the hardest challenges that your software team face today. Therefore, before reinventing the wheel, learn from similar things in the past. That is the whole idea of using these Software Architecture books.
- Learn as you go, slowly and consciously — You don’t have to spend sleepless nights to finish reading the entire book collection in one go. But having access to them will definitely help (maybe have a small library at your office/home). Develop a learning mindset and absorb things from these books as you build things. Most of the time, you may have to unlearn, relearn, and combine some of these concepts over time, so be prepared for that too.
- Don’t become a slave. Your style can be better! — From books, patterns, and experts, you only must take what you can reapply today. If they are no longer valid, instead of blindly following their advice, you must start thinking from the points where experts in the past stopped thinking. If they don’t work at all, start thinking fresh. Never underestimate your creativity and the capability to do things differently and better, just because some book said something else in the past.
The above book collection will help engineers to be better at their craft in many ways. If you know any other great books that have not been included in the above list, please let me know — I’d love to list them here!
