97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts,   ISBN:9780596522698

Customer Rating: 

(The following won't be completely fair because I feel unable to write a book such this one)
Although I was interested about the subject I felt bored after reading the first few pages. Each chapter seemed a repetition of the others. So, I suppose that I expected something either more personal (e.g. kind of war stories) or more technical (i.e. how to document such and such)... something like "coders at work" or "beautiful code", or something like "Elements of programming"...

I will try to read it again in a few months. All the books deserve a second chance.

Customer Rating: 

If you buy this book expecting 97 in depth dissertations on software architecture & design, you will be disappointed. It is instead, a collection of observations on the relationships between business, people and technology. This is not a tome that one sits down and reads in a day, acquiring all of the knowledge of the collected contributors in that instant. It is instead a book, which is best read a chapter or two at a time, and discussed amongst your colleagues. Some lessons you will be able to implement immediately, some will not be of value to you ever. Many deal with issues that (as one would expect) will help to make your life easier if implemented in the planning stages of a project. The only thing I would change so far would be to change "Your Customer Is Not Your Customer" to "Your Customer Is Not Your Only Customer" or "Everyone Is A Customer".

I give it 4 stars instead of 5 because as others have noted, it is very lightweight. I do feel that this book would be suitable for most folks in technology to read, not limited to software architects. I would have no hesitation recommending this book to everyone from a Junior Systems Administrator or Project Manager all the way to a Director Of Technology.

Customer Rating: 

Why does a famous (and, he has proven it, excellent) technical writer dare to compile
such a useless, incoherent and impractical amount of pseudo-advice?

His other books provided deep technical knowledge and practical help.

This one's not worth its price - there are much better books available...

alternatives: Taylor et al: Software Architecture (Foundations, Theory and Practice): Great read.
Bass et. al: Software Architecture in Practice: Great read.
Buschmann et. al: Pattern-oriented Software Architecture: Great series.
Fowler: Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture: Great, highly practical...

So - don't bother with this one, go get a good book :-)

Customer Rating: 

this book talks about different experiences of people, what they did wrong and what we can learm from them. this book did teach me a lot and would recomend this to be a must read.

Customer Rating: 

Real world architecture advice from real world architects. Some of the suggestions are really good. Gives you some insight into an architect's mind.