Software architecture must adapt as software evolves to meet changing requirements; otherwise, it becomes outdated. Fitness functions serve as guardrails that allow continuous architectural evolution within defined parameters. Defined in "Building Evolutionary Architectures" by Neal Ford and others, fitness functions are mechanisms for objectively assessing architectural characteristics. When adhered to, they ensure architecture remains 'good' and offer rapid feedback, fostering collaboration between architects and developers. Libraries such as ArchUnit facilitate the implementation of these fitness functions, promoting a culture of adaptable and resilient software design.
Software architecture must evolve to keep up with changing requirements, or we risk an architecture that no longer meets current and future operational needs.
Fitness functions provide guardrails that enable continuous evolution of your system's architecture within a desired range and direction.
Fitness functions offer self-defined guardrails for certain aspects of our architecture, giving fast feedback if we stay within certain self-chosen ranges.
Using libraries like ArchUnit makes it feasible to write fitness functions for structural aspects of architectural fitness, fostering collaboration between architects and developers.
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