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Visualising software architecture with the C4 model - Simon Brown, Agile on the Beach 2019

Agile on the Beach · 553.8K views · 2019-08-16 · 35:33

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Overview

Simon Brown's Agile on the Beach 2019 talk presents the C4 model, a lightweight approach to diagramming software architecture with a shared vocabulary and simple notation.

On Hacker News

Recommended as the introduction to C4 when people ask how to visualize and communicate software architecture.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2021–2023

Topics

Software architecture & design
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c4 modelsoftware architecturediagrammingstructurizrsimon brown

What people said

SnowProblem · 2023-08 · Recommendation

If C4 is new to you too, I recommend their intro video: [VIDEO] . It feels like a very light ruleset over what we would do naturally when explaining a system to another engineer. That's great. Some of the ideas that stood out were: 1. Allow flexibility in the notation (shapes and color) as long as the abstractions are good. 2. When drawing arrows, make them unidirectional to show the main intent. 3. Hide details to express the main story (@ 27min in the video) 4. Don't just give names to components. Give short descriptions too. 5. Don't document the lowest levels. Code is better here.

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qrian · 2022-05 · Recommendation

Recently stumbled upon [C4 Model]( [VIDEO] ), which seemed very promising. It builds on the failure of adopton of UMLs, and aim to be practical and communicative.

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tmountain · 2021-11 · Recommendation

These fail my litmus test, which is, "can a third-party look at the diagram and make sense of it without verbal explanation?" For a more formal approach to coherent diagrams and white boarding, I recommend the C4 model. It's conceptually simple and results in better system documentation than the free form method that's commonly used. [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by Agile on the Beach, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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