Application Architecture Properties

There are architectural properties that are unrelated to specific application requirements but are nevertheless important.  A technical architecture should show how it addresses these properties:

• Coherence - any one thing is "about" one thing and does one thing
• Consistency - each part of the application follows the same principles
• Loose coupling - each part of the application is attached loosely to other parts, being as ignorant as possible of other parts of the application
• Maintainability - the application is structured so that it is relatively easy to find any given piece that must be modified and the change can be made in an atomistic way