Use composable services to optimize application design tradeoffs — Experienced software designers know that successful application systems are created by carefully choosing the best compromises among competing requirements. Composable services can dramatically reduce the kinds of compromises we need to make. To design applications that take advantage of composable services we need to think outside the box — or…

How composable services extend microservices — The composable services pattern is based upon composing applications from self-contained, reusable services. To take full advantage of building with composable services, it is important to understand how the pattern extends its parent pattern — traditional microservices. How Is the Composable Services Pattern Different? If the Composable Services Pattern seems a lot like microservices—that’s because it is…

What is message orchestration and why do we need it? — Message orchestration can be a key to implementing component models that deliver on the promise of microservices without the complexity and performance penalties so frequently paid. Let’s take a look at what message orchestrators are and how we can use them to tame microservices. What Is a Message Orchestrator? A message orchestrator is software that…

How to break the software development logjam — A fundamental problem that building software must address is that it is inherently too complex to fit in our heads. Our brains can focus upon only so much detail at any one instant in time — and we are the ones who ultimately have to build the software. …

Can we have the software development equivalent to the power of integrated circuit chips? — Moore’s Law describes a principle that the speed and capability of computers can be expected to double every two years, as a result of increases in the number of transistors an integrated circuit chip can contain. So, why don’t we have an equivalent to Moore’s Law for software? The Integrated Circuit Chip The integrated…

Using software architecture to tame development backlogs — Let’s take a deeper look into exactly why and how software architecture can help fulfill the promise of Agile and start to tame development backlogs. “The goal of software architecture is to minimize the human resources required to build and maintain the required system.” — Robert C. Martin, Clean Architecture The Iron Law of Project Management

Ignoring software architecture is crippling software development — Why the failure to understand and fulfill the purpose of software architecture is crippling corporate software development and inflating development backlogs and costs. “The goal of software architecture is to minimize the human resources required to build and maintain the required system. The architecture of a software system is the…

Excerpted from: No Silver Bullet — Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering, by Fred Brooks — Frederick Phillips “Fred” Brooks Jr. (April 19, 1931 — November 17, 2022) was an American computer architect, software engineer, and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM’s System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 operating system — then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal…

What we can learn about software development from an Army field manual — Managing a business in a competitive market is filled with uncertainties. So why do we work so hard to avoid acknowledging uncertainty in our business planning? How often do we build our software development plans around uncertain assumptions — and how often do we cling to a plan after too…