Architectural Genres by Grady Booch

Architectural Genre is used to define the architectural approach for the build of any structure. Considering the software programming areas, the architectural designs point to a specific category, with a number of subcategories for each. Some general styles that are taken into consideration with the genre of buildings are – houses, condos, apartment buildings, office buildings, industrial buildings, warehouses, etc. The architectural genres for software-based systems as suggested by Grady Booch are as follows –

• Artificial Intelligence – 
  Systems which simulate or augment human cognition, locomotion, or other organic processes.
• Commercial and Non-Profit –
  Here, it includes systems that are fundamental to the operation of a business enterprise.
• Communication – 
  Systems that provide the infrastructure for transferring and managing data, for connecting users of the data, or for presenting data at the edge of an infrastructure.
• Content Authoring – 
  It includes systems that are used to create or manipulate textual or multimedia artifacts.
• Device – 
  Systems that interact with the physical world to provide some point service for an individual.
• Entertainment and Sports – 
  It includes those systems that manage public events or that provide a large group entertainment experience.
• Financial – 
  Systems that provide the infrastructure for managing and transferring money and other securities.
• Games –
  This includes the systems that provide an entertainment experience to individuals or groups.
• Government – 
  This includes those systems that support the conduct and operations of a local, state, federal, global, or other political entity.
• Industrial – 
  Systems that simulate or control physical processes.
• Legal – 
  Systems that support the legal industry
• Medical –
  It includes systems that diagnose or heal or that contribute to medical research.
• Military – 
  Systems for consultation, command, communications, intelligence, and control as well as offensive and defensive weapons.
• Operating Systems – 
  It includes systems that sit just above hardware to provide basic software services.
• Scientific – 
  This includes systems that are used for scientific research and applications.
• Transportation – 
  It includes systems that control water, ground air, or space vehicles.

Here each genre represents a unique challenge. Let us consider the software architecture for a game system. The game system requires the computation of intensive algorithms, sophisticated computer graphics, streaming multimedia data sources, real-time interactivity via conventional and unconventional inputs, and a variety of other specialized concerns.