Since April of this year I've been working on a side project called 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know. This has been a collaborative effort among software architects and it culminated today in the public release of the "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" web site.

The site contains axioms from some of the top software architects that I know. Each axiom is a piece of advice for software architects about everything from maintaining the vision to communicating with co-workers. To date there are 49 axioms that have been accepted but we want a lot more. We are inviting the community to come to the site, learn, get inspired, and contribute their own axioms. Hopefully one day there will be hundreds of axioms providing insight and guidance to software architects all over the world.

The "97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know" web site is only the begining. Working with O'Reilly Media, Inc. a book based on the web site will be published early next year. It will take the top 97 axioms from the web site and put them in print. Each axiom will get its own two page spread that includes the name and picture of the author. In addition, every author's biography will be published in the back of the book. This is a web and a book project created by software architects for software architects.

In the future O'Reilly will be publishing other 97 Things projects (e.g. "97 Things Every Software Project Manager Should Know") which will follow the same collaborative format as the architects book. All of these projects, whether they result in a book or not, will be made available for free on the web for everyone to access and contribute.

I'm excited about this project - I'm pretty confident people will find the site useful and I'm looking forward to seeing the community at large participate.