Software Architecture Design

CS 411 is about the decisions you make *before* writing code that determine whether a system will survive its next five years of requirements: how to decompose it, which styles fit which constraints, and how to argue for those choices when stakeholders push back. You'll work through two team projects where you actually design and document architectures using module, component-and-connector, and allocation views, then peer-review each other's work, with quizzes and an essay keeping the reading honest alongside an open-book final. Coming after CS 319's object-oriented design, it pulls you up a level — from "how should this class look" to "why is the system shaped this way" — which is the lens you'll need for any senior-level systems work or industry role where someone eventually asks you to justify a design.