Simon Brown
Software architecture and design speaker | Creator of the C4 model
About
Simon Brown is a software architecture expert who has spoken at Devoxx conferences across multiple editions. He is the creator of the C4 model, a framework for visualizing software architecture that has gained traction in the developer community. Brown's speaking focuses on making software architecture accessible and practical.
His signature talk on the C4 model demonstrates how teams can effectively communicate system designs through a structured approach to architectural diagrams. He also addresses what he calls "the lost art of software design," exploring how modern development practices can benefit from renewed attention to design fundamentals. His work extends to treating architecture models as code, bringing software engineering rigor to architectural documentation.
Through his presentations at technical conferences, Brown advocates for clearer thinking about software structure and better ways to document and communicate architectural decisions. His emphasis on visualization and practical modeling techniques resonates with development teams seeking to improve how they design and discuss system architecture.
What Simon Talks About
The C4 model for visualizing software architecture
Treating architecture and design models as code
The lost art of software design in modern development
Practical approaches to documenting system architecture
Communicating architectural decisions effectively across teams
Talks3
The C4 model for visualising software architecture
It's very likely that most software architecture diagrams you've seen are a confused mess of boxes and arrows. Following the publication of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development in 2001, teams have abandoned UML, discarded the concept of modelling, and instead place a heavy reliance on conversations centered around incoherent whiteboard diagrams or shallow "Marketecture" diagrams created with Visio. Moving fast and being agile requires good communication, yet software development teams struggle with this fundamental skill. A good set of software architecture diagrams are priceless for aligning a team around a shared vision, and for getting new-joiners productive fast. This talk explores the visual communication of software architecture, and is based upon years of experience working with software development teams large and small across the globe. We'll look at what is commonplace today, the importance of creating a shared vocabulary, diagram notation, and the value of creating a lightweight model to describe your software system. The content is based upon the "C4 model", which I created as a way to help software development teams describe and communicate software architecture, both during up-front design sessions and when retrospectively documenting an existing codebase. It's a way to create maps of your code, at various levels of detail, allowing you to tell different stories to different audiences.
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