Books for Great Software Architects

It has been common to see posts and articles talking about what a software architect must read and what your book library, as an architect, should include. However, no one explains how to read them or if there is a specific sequence that must be followed.

Personally, and through my reading journey, I found a link between these books. This link defines which book is considered a pre-requisite for another and which book’s content can make sense when read after another and which one should be the next to gain the full picture.

Without knowing this link, the reading will be rough and frustrating, consuming a lot of your time and effort. For example, and in many cases, I had to read the same book twice; first time was before reading its pre-requisites, which was boring, confusing, and the second time was after reading the right pre-requisites, where everything suddenly became crystal clear.

In this article, I will show and explain the right reading sequence for the most important books in the software architecture world in the form of a roadmap composed of multiple paths, which is supposed, if followed, to streamline your reading process and make your journey smoother (hopefully smoother than mine) and to become a great software architect faster.

Note 1: In this article, its assumed that you have a good experience in one or more programming languages and you are interested to enter the software architecture world.

Note 2: Books are very important to gain the knowledge, but they are not enough to build the skillset, practicing is essential to polish the gained knowledge with the required skills to be real architect. So, make sure to practice, then practice and finally practice.

Note 3: While reading the reading roadmap stories, you will find concepts and terms and it is important to learn about these concepts by reading the following story "Main Concepts in Software Architecture"

Roadmap Paths

As explained in my previous article “Types of Technology Architectures”, there are many different types of software architectures that addresses different types of specializations such as Application Architecture, Integration Architecture, Data Architecture, and etc.

The reading roadmap in this article follows the same and it will have different paths according to the different types of software architectures as depicted below:

As per the roadmap, no matter which architecture type you are interested to be specialized in, there is a fundamental path that must be followed before going into your own specialization.

Accordingly, the article is divided into 3 parts according to the architecture types prefixed with a path for fundamentals which is considered as a pre-requisite for subsequent parts:

• Part 1 covers Fundamentals Path: in this path, you will find an ordered list of books that gives you the basic skills required to start your journey into Software Architecture.
• Part 2 covers Application Architecture Path : in this path, you will an ordered list of books that gives you the skills required to be a great Application Architect
• Part 3 covers Integration Architecture Path: in this path, you will an ordered list of books that gives you the skills required to be a great Integration Architect
• Part 4 covers Data Architecture Path: in this path, you will an ordered list of books that gives you the skills required to be a great Data Architect. (Part 4 is still under progress, please stay tuned)

If you are interested to be full stack Software Architect, then you need to read them in the same exact sequence mentioned above (Part 1, then 2, 3 and finally 4)

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