Software Architecture For Developers with Neal Ford

Summary Whether it is intentional or accidental, every piece of software has an existing architecture. In this episode Neal Ford discusses the role of a software architect, methods for improving the design of your projects, pitfalls to avoid, and provides some resources for continuing to learn about how to design and build successful systems. Preface Hello and welcome to Podcast.__init__, the podcast about Python and the people who make it great. I would like to thank everyone who supports us on Patreon. Your contributions help to make the show sustainable. When you’re ready to launch your next project you’ll need somewhere to deploy it. Check out Linode at podastinit.com/linode and get a $20 credit to try out their fast and reliable Linux virtual servers for running your awesome app. And now you can deliver your work to your users even faster with the newly upgraded 200 GBit network in all of their datacenters. If you’re tired of cobbling together your deployment pipeline then it’s time to try out GoCD, the open source continuous delivery platform built by the people at ThoughtWorks who wrote the book about it. With GoCD you get complete visibility into the life-cycle of your software from one location. To download it now go to podcatinit.com/gocd. Professional support and enterprise plugins are available for added piece of mind. Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the newsletter, and read the show notes. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions I would love to hear them. You can reach me on Twitter at @Podcast__init__ or email [email protected]) To help other people find the show please leave a review on iTunes, or Google Play Music, tell your friends and co-workers, and share it on social media. A few announcements before we start the show: There is still time to register for the O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference in New York. Use the link podcastinit.com/sacon-new-york to register and save 20% If you work with data or want to learn more about how the projects you have heard about on the show get used in the real world then join me at the Open Data Science Conference in Boston from May 1st through the 4th. It has become one of the largest events for data scientists, data engineers, and data driven businesses to get together and learn how to be more effective. To save 60% off your tickets go to podcastinit.com/odsc-east-2018 and register. With many thanks to O’Reilly Media, I have two items to give away. To sign up you just need to subscribe to the mailing list at podcastinit.com and you will have the chance to win either a copy of Neal’s book, Building Evolutionary Architectures, or a Bronze ticket to the O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference in New York. I will be picking the winners on February 21st. Your host as usual is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Neal Ford about principles of software architecture for developers Interview Introductions How did you get introduced to Python? A majority of your work has been focused on software architectures and how that can be used to facilitate delivery of working systems. Can you start by giving a high level description of what software architecture is and how it fits into the overall development process? One of the difficulties that arise in long-lived projects is that technical debt accrues to the point that forward progress stagnates due to fear that any changes will cause the system to stop functioning. What are some methods that developers can use to either guard against that eventuality, or address it when it happens? What are some of the broad categories of architectural patterns that developers should be aware of? Are there aspects of the language that a system or application is being implemented in which influence the style of architecture that is commonly used? What are some architectural anti-patterns that you have found to be the most commonly occurring? Software is useless if there is no way to deliver it to the end user. What are some of the challenges that are most often overlooked by engineering teams and how do you solve for them? Beyond the purely technological aspects, what other elements of software production and delivery are necessary for a successful architecture? What resources can you recommend for someone who is interested in learning more about software architecture, whether as an individual contributor or in a full time architect role? Keep In Touch Website @neal4d on Twitter Picks Tobias Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle Lost City of Z Neal DeveloperToArchitect.com EvolutionaryArchitecture.com Broken Earth Series Links Thoughtworks Neal’s Blog Lisp Thoughtworks Technology Radar Martin Fowler: Who Needs an Architect? O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference Soft Skills Microservices Building Evolutionary Architectures Github: Move Fast and Fix Things Continuous Delivery Github Scientist Laboratory (Scientist in Python) Agile Development The Accidental Architect System Quality Attributes Pipes and Filters MapReduce Hadoop Service Oriented Architecture Linux DevOps Configuration Management React Alibaba Open Source Baidu Open Source Pragmatic Programmer Trunk Based Development PlantUML Visio Mermaid Diagrams Graphviz Evernote Software Architecture Fundamentals Enterprise Integration Patterns Architectural Katas The intro and outro music is from Requiem for a Fish The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA