Summing up contextual influence on systems architecture

gistfile1.txt

1. Monolithic applications and architectures  can vary in their monolithness. This is an under-specified description.
2. Microservice applications and architectures can vary in their microness. This is an under-specified description.
3. Microservices and monolithic architectures have both benefits and disadvantages.
4. Organizations will exploit those benefits while working around any weaknesses.
5. Success of the business is a large influence on the exploitation of benefits and implementation and costs of workarounds.
6. All benefits and work arounds are context-sensitive. Meaning that they are both technically and socially constructed by the organization that navigates them. 
7. Path dependency is a thing. History matters and manifests in these architectural decisions and evolution in an organization. 
8. Patterns exist to inform practice, not dictate it. Zealous adherence to an architectural pattern brings peril when it is to the exclusion of cultural context in actual practice.
9. Architectural patterns will expand, contract, evolve, and change to fit the trade-offs that an organization perceives it has to make.

There is some wisdom in line 8 which is rarely seen in the internet 👍