Modern, Classic, and Bibliographic Definitions

Modern definitions appear in Software Architecture in Practice and ANSI/IEEE Std 1471-2000, Recommended Practice for Architectural Description of Software-Intensive Systems.

Classic definitions appear in some of the more prominent or influential books and papers on architecture. 

Bibliographic definitions are taken from papers and articles in our software architecture bibliography.

Community Definitions

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"Software architecture is the set of design decisions which, if made incorrectly, may cause your project to be canceled."   
—Eoin Woods