Bridge Architecture

Introduction

This post is the twenty-fifth part of a ramble-rant about the software business. The current posts in this series are:

This post is about a software development methodology I call it Bridge Architecture.

Bridges are designed to carry an amount of traffic for some amount of time while withstanding the worst weather imaginable. Bridges come in all shapes and sizes. In this post I’ll talk about cantilever, cable-stayed, and suspension bridges.

Cantilever Bridge

Suspension Bridge

Suspension bridges get their name from their design. The deck of the bridge is suspended by cables, which are attached either to other cables or to anchor points. A combination of towers and cables do the heavy lifting and they vary in design. For example, the deck can be suspended from vertical cables that attach to larger cables that anchor – like the Golden Gate Bridge.

The Varina-Enon Bridge on I-295 near Richmond Virginia is cable-stayed bridge variation of a suspension bridge whereby the towers serve as anchor points for the cables and the deck is directly suspended by load-bearing cables from the towers.

Bridges are cool. All enigeers should study bridge design and construction, as this discipline lends itself to best practices.

Here’s a good article on building your very own suspension bridge, in case you’re looking to do that out back somewhere. I don’t need a suspension bridge at the moment. But if I ever do, I’ll follow these instructions.

Bridge Construction and Software

When suspension bridge construction reaches the decking phase, the workers install a section of deck – or several sections depending on the design. The next step is interesting: they work from the last section of deck installed to install the next section.