Architectural Concepts Podcast

An interesting, entertaining, and wide ranging discussion with product designer, Natasha Irizarry. Natasha has quickly compiled some very interesting experience in software product design, some of which was gained while at OkCupid where she worked alongside Christian Rudder while he was completing his book Dataclysm.

Listen as we start with Natasha's perspectives on user experience design, experiments, strategy, and make our way to a discussion of the best selling "big data book": Dataclysm. 

Listen now: (download)

Books we mentioned:

Many of us work on systems that are designed to be quite robust, even highly available--but how can we go beyond that and make them antifragile--that is, how can we get these systems to grow in robustness as they are changed, loaded, and experience failures?  One spoiler, it involves loving errors.

In this episode, Bett and Russ discuss antifragile with Dr. Martin Monperrus of the University of Lille & Inria.  He is preparing to do research in this area and has published a paper on the topic.

We discuss many related questions, and where there are ready answers, we delve into to them--listen to hear about this very intriguing topic.

Listen now: (download)

A few of the other books we mention:

Why is the Mona Lisa so famous and what does it have to with how we do our jobs?  In this episode, Bett and Russ review and add color to the book Everything Is Obvious: Once You Know the Answer by Duncan J Watts.  The book highlights the many ways we over rely on common sense, how it fails us, and then provides strategies for overcoming those failings.

Listen to hear strategies for overcoming the failings of common sense.

Listen now: (download)

A few of the other books we mention:

Perhaps the secret to writing bug free code lies with the health of the coder?  Well, maybe it is a bit more complicated than that, but at the same time, your health and comfort while programming clearly will impact not only the quality of your life, but also the quality of the code you write or the system you architect.

In this episode, Jyoti Chawla, joins us. Jyoti is a nurse and a programmer, and as such is uniquely qualified to give advice on how to live long and prosper as a software professional. Listen to get important health related tips.

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After defeating mankind at Jeopardy, Watson is displaying humility and mercy by taking on a new role: assisting humans with research and finding smarter answers, for example, helping treat brain cancer.  In this episode we discuss Watson and how it will impact your future with, Jerome Pesenti, VP of Watson Core Technology.

IBM continues to make a huge bet on cognitive computing through Watson, and is extending this bet into the cloud, making Watson available to a much wider audience in the form of Watson-as-a-Service,  Is there a place for it in your architecture?  After all, having some level of machine learning and intelligence may quickly become a base requirement for enterprise applications.  Listen to learn more...

Listen now: (download)

Books that were mentioned:

Permutation City

Diamond Age

Everything is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails Us

References:

Watson Ecosystem

How Watson Changed IBM

Build with Watson

Watson Q&A at IBM's Developer Works (interesting to peruse)

Bett and Russ review Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book "Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder".  We previously reviewed Black Swan, and thought, in preparation for a deeper discussion of how Antifragile's concepts can apply to software development and architecture, that we should review this book, also.

Humans need not Apply

Everything is Obvious *Once you know the answer

Thinking Fast and Slow

Listen now: (download)

In light of the size of current software projects, good project leadership is essential to a project’s success. The role of technical project leader frequently falls on software architects, yet architects are often not trained in leadership or—even worse—are not aware of their roles as leaders. Yet, the leadership architects can and should provide is often pivotal to a project’s success.

In this episode, Russ interviews Bett as she describes several concrete strategies that an architect can follow to become a leader.

Listen now: (download)

The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything by Stephen M.R. Covey

Life Is a Series of Presentations: 8 Ways to Punch Up Your People Skills Tony Jeary (Author), Kim Dower (Contributor), J.E. Fishman (Contributor)

So, What's Your Point?: A practical guide for learning and applying effective interpersonal communication techniques by James Wetherbe and Bond Wetherbe

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