Title: Big Ball of Mud
Author's Names: Brian Foote and Joseph Yoder
Email: {foote | yoder} @cs.uiuc.edu
Postal: 1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, IL 61801
phone: (217) 244-4695
 
Abstract:
While much attention has been focused on high-level software
archtectural patterns, the defacto standard software architecture is
seldom discussed.  This paper examines the most frequently deployed
architecture: the BIG BALL OF MUD.  A BIG BALL OF MUD is a casually,
even haphazzarly, structured system.  It's organization, if one can
call it that, is dictated more by expediency than design.  Yet, it's
enduring popularity cannot merely be indicative of a general disregard
for architecture.
 
The patterns herein explore the forces that encourage the emergence of
a BIG BALL OF MUD, and the undeniable effectiveness of this approach
to architecture.  In order to become so popular, it must be doing
something right.  If more high-minded archtectural approaches are to
compete, we must understand what the BIG BALL OF MUD style does well.
 
A number of additional pattern emerge out of the BIG BALL OF MUD.  We
discuss them in turn.  Two principal questions underly these patterns:
Why are so many existing systems so bad, and what can we do to make
them better?
 
 
 
 
Subject Area:  Software Architecture, Evolution
 
Keywords: Architecture, Evolution