Architecture Arena Part 1

Groups: This assignment will be completed in your pre-assigned groups from the beginning of the semester.

During the tutorial, each group will be called to the front of the classroom. Each group will be asked a question that is related to the following scenario.

Scenario: Chirper

Chirper is a fictitious, real-time microblogging service that emerged to fill a void in the social media landscape following the disappearance of Twitter. Birds can post Chirps and follow other Birds to receive a curated feed of their content.

In addition, Chirper is getting huge traction. They have just crossed 1 million daily active users and 5 million daily tweets. Furthermore, on average, there are 100 followers per Bird, and the most popular bird, @paco, has gathered 2 million followers.

The Data Model

Chirper uses a simple 3-table data model to store application data, following the business rules below:

• A Bird can follow many Birds.
• A Bird can post a Chirp.

erDiagram
    BIRD {
        string id PK
        string email
        string name
        string password_hash
    }

    CHIRP {
        string id PK
        string content
        datetime timestamp
        string bird_id FK
    }

    FOLLOWS {
        string follower_id PK, FK
        string followed_id PK, FK
    }

    BIRD ||--o{ CHIRP : posts
    BIRD ||--o{ FOLLOWS : follows
    BIRD ||--o{ FOLLOWS : is_followed_by

Grading and Evaluation

Your answers will be graded by the Teaching Assistants (TAs) based on their comprehensiveness, accuracy, and demonstrated understanding of architectural principles.

To ensure fair and consistent marking, the question and answer session for each group will be audio-recorded. This will allow for later review and arbitration on marks if necessary.