Indeed! I also don't think that many teams really understand what their codebase looks like...
I've run a number of workshops where I've asked teams to draw software architecture diagrams of their own software. In many cases, you get the typical layered architecture, with all of the arrows pointing downwards (a strictly layered architecture).
Me: that looks lovely; is your codebase really that well structured?
Team: yes
Team: yes
Me: Okay, load up the code, and let's compare it with the diagram.
... ten minutes later ...
Me: It looks like you missed all of these lines. 😂
... ten minutes later ...
Me: It looks like you missed all of these lines. 😂
And of course those lines go upwards, they bypass layers, etc. Not so clean after all ... the simplified perception of a codebase is sometimes very different from the messy reality.
The saving grace here is that once teams visualise this stuff, they often have eureka moments that they never had before.
Team: oh, that's why changing X always breaks Y! I never realised there was a dependency there.
Team: oh, that's why changing X always breaks Y! I never realised there was a dependency there.
Visualise your software architecture folks, it can really help!
