Architectural Concepts Podcast

In this episode, Bett and Russ deliver 10 predictions for 2015.  But don't worry, this isn't one of those predictable prediction podcasts,  No, we wouldn't bore you like that! Instead, we've taken time to also include those futuristic, mind blowing innovations we'd selfishly like to see come about in 2015.

Listen and be amazed by our ability to see into the future...

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Our annual list of the top 10 books we read this last year--fiction and non-fiction.

Listen now: (download)

Russ' top non-fiction:

Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder (A Book Review)

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism

The Innovators (Book Review Episode)

Dataclysm (Episode: The Intersection of Product Design and Big Data with Natasha Irizarry)

The Idea Factory

Bett's top non-fiction:

The Phoenix Project

Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time

The Glass Cage

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism

Seneca: Letters from a Stoic

Russ' top fiction

The Martian: A Novel

Daemon

Cat's Cradle: A Novel

White Noise

The Circle

Bett's top fiction

The Martian: A Novel

The Circle

Hyperion

Android's Dream

Daemon

When you look back over 2014, and all the new ideas or concepts that you encountered, which struck you as big "a-ha"s -- that is, what did you learn that will reshape how you approach software development next year and beyond?  If  your "a-ha"s don't come to you easily, perhaps listening to Bett and Russ discuss their's will help you reflect on yours.

In this episode, Bett and Russ recount their big software related "a-ha"s for 2014.

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If you have been following this podcast for any length of time, you know about the SEI's SATURN conference.  Whether you are new to this podcast and SATURN or simply want to know what is planned for this years event, you'll want to listen to this episode to hear what the conference chair, Bill Pollak, and his team from the SEI have planned for this years event.

The 2015 SATURN event takes place in Baltimore, Maryland April 27-30, 2015.  For Software Architects, this is a must attend event.  Also, the event is taking abstracts from speakers through January 16, 2015.

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A classic book:

Software Architecture: Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline Paperback

by Mary Shaw, David Garlan

Will be a classic:

DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective – Coming May 21, 2015

by Len Bass, Ingo Weber, Liming Zhu

IBM is investing billions in commercializing the Jeopardy winning Watson technology.  Recently, they made aspects of the underlying machine learning available in the cloud as services on top of Bluemix. Now anyone can build machine learning into a web site or app--mind blowing!

Listen to this episode as Michael Keeling of IBM explains Watson Explorer and the various machine learning services that are part of the Watson Developer Cloud which were recently unveiled.

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Samples: https://github.com/Watson-Explorer/wex-wdc-integration-samples/

Deep QA (nuts and bolts of Watson)

IBM Partners with Twitter

As computing professionals, we spend much of our time automating. Automating tasks that a human would have done manually in the past.  What's the net impact of all this automation?  Has it ultimately made life for the masses sweeter, softer, simpler, and safer?

In his latest book, The Glass Cage, Nicolas Carr analyzes this question deeply. He gives great examples, for instance, pointing out that now that our creations are becoming autonomous, our creations encode moral decisions that would have, in the past, been made directly by a human.

In this episode, Bett and Russ discuss the more interesting points from this book: The Glass Cage, highlighting how it relates to our jobs as computing professionals.

Listen now: (download)

http://www.amazon.com/Glass-Cage-Automation-Us/dp/0393240762

While nine woman can't make a baby in one month, nine possums can...what does that have to do with software delivery?  You'll have to listen to find out.

In this episode, Uma describes his Under-N methodology.  The Under-N methodology provides a framework to uncover hidden capabilities within IT applications and IT application teams and then to use the capabilities to deliver a business need, change, or want in under N hours, where N is the absolute time it takes to deliver. It also elicits capabilities that may not yet be present but that are possible, while outlining four atomic change capabilities that, when implemented, will enable IT applications to deliver changes in an under-N fashion by mixing and matching. 

Listen now: (download)

Slides for Uma's presentation: http://resources.sei.cmu.edu/library/asset-view.cfm?assetid=89596

So you think you are good at coding or architecture?  Here's your chance to learn how to prove it to the world through coding competitions like Top Coder.  And yes, there are competitions oriented toward architecture, too.

Douglas Woolley has competed in these competitions and joins Bett and Russ to share some stories about competitions along with information about how you can get involved.

Listen now: (download)

•Facebook Hacker Cup: https://www.facebook.com/hackercup

•Google Code Jam:http://code.google.com/codejam

•TopCoder (USA based): http://community.topcoder.com/tc

•CodeForces (Russian based):http://codeforces.com/

•Code Chef (India based):http://www.codechef.com/

•UVa Online Judge: http://uva.onlinejudge.org/

•HackerRank: https://www.hackerrank.com/

•Sphere Online Judge (SPOJ):http://www.spoj.com/problems/classical/

Walter Isaacson follows his biography of Steve Jobs with another great book.  This one does not focus on any particular individual, but rather starts with Ada Lovelace and flows through time, up to the present, spotlighting each of the innovators that played a part in laying the foundation for, and ultimately creating, the digital revolution.  In this episode, we briefly review this new book.

Listen to hear how many thumbs up this book received from Bett and Russ.

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The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

Listen to this episode to hear how wallowing around in many small balls of mud can help avoid the classic big ball of mud--and ultimately enable you too to practice "the art of destroying software".

Turns out the key to writing great software starts with planning upfront to destroy it.  In this episode, Greg shares many insights, with the main insight being that we have all been overlooking one key  "-ility". That is, is delete-ability of code.  And while some of you might argue the ideas are not new, Greg's way of presenting them definitely is.

Listen now: (download)

Greg's blog: http://goodenoughsoftware.net/

Programming Erlang: Software for a Concurrent World by Joe Armstrong

Learn You Some Erlang for Great Good!: A Beginner's Guide by Fred Hebert

The Glass Cage: Automation and Us by Nicholas Carr

Parallel Distributed Processing, Volume 1 By David E. Rumelhart, James L. McClelland and PDP Research Group