Everything I needed to know about Software Architecture...I learned from Google App Engine

Software Architecture is a sweeping field of study with an immeasurable range of opinions on how best to approach its execution. While designing a cloud-hosted project involving Google App Engine, I came to realize that there are quite a few similarities between approaches to App Engine development and those applicable to Software Architecture, generally.

Below, I've explored a few concepts that get at my own observations of the connections between Google's cloud application platform and the larger school of thought. If you're familiar with one, but not the other, fear not! Descriptions of each App Engine component are provided, with an explanation of the corresponding architectural concept appended in italics.

Heartbleed, meet Google App Engine

The Heartbleed Overflow Issue is a bug that adversely affects network security. By exploiting this vulnerability, encrypted data may become compromised during transmission. Individuals responsible for hosting web applications that require a high level of security may find themselves scrambling to find ways to patch their servers so as to minimize Heartbleed's impact on their operations. That is, those individuals who aren't hosting their applications on Google App Engine.

Back to Basics: Template-Driven Documentation

Documentation is something that some see as a necessary evil; others look at it as a needless chore better left to someone else; others still see documentation as the indicator of a job well done. Documentation templates can help bring all of these different perspectives together and write quality software that's easier and less expensive to maintain and extend.

Using Google Apps Script to Automate Document Creation

Google Apps Script is a Javascript-like programming language that runs on Google's cloud; it provides tools and library calls that allow developers to interact with data from both public and private sources (upon authorization by the end user whose data is being manipulated).

Automatically generated Google Apps Script documentation

Did you know that it's possible to view automatically generated documentation from your Google Apps Script scripts?  

My team has been using JSDoc to document files, functions, variables, etc. as a programming best practice. As a side-effect, we could use auto-complete on functions from other libraries to (greatly) simplify development. However, we would often find ourselves scrolling through library source code to find comments on how to properly use functions, constants, etc..

With the oft-overlooked documentation generation functionality of Google Apps Script provided here, it's possible to quickly and easily create developer-friendly documentation.