This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club.
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Sheen Brisals - AWS Serverless Hero, Engineering Leader & Co-Author of "Serverless Development on AWS"
Vlad Khononov - Author of "Balancing Coupling in Software Design" & "Learning Domain Driven Design" & Creator of the Balanced Coupling Model

RESOURCES
Vlad
https://bsky.app/profile/vladikk.bsky.social
https://vladikk.com
https://github.com/vladikk
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vladikk

Sheen
https://bsky.app/profile/sheenbrisals.bsky.social
https://twitter.com/sheenbrisals
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheen-brisals
https://sbrisals.medium.com

Links
https://www.informit.com
https://youtu.be/6hTZXR2brWE

DESCRIPTION
Sheen Brisals sits down with software engineer and author Vlad Khononov to explore his latest book, "Balancing Coupling in Software Design". Vlad shares his journey from a failed microservices project to his deep dive into the principles of coupling, drawing insights from a 1970s structured design book.

The duo discusses the timeless nature of coupling in software, how modern systems like microservices and cloud architectures still rely on age-old design principles, and the importance of understanding complexity for better problem decomposition and estimation. Vlad also reveals his unique approach to the book—integrating AI-generated poetry into each chapter to help readers grasp complex concepts. With a focus on modularity as the antidote to complexity, Vlad emphasizes that by managing coupling, engineers can create more maintainable, scalable systems.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Vlad Khononov • Balancing Coupling in Software Design
Vlad Khononov • Learning Domain-Driven Design
Sheen Brisals & Luke Hedger • Serverless Development on AWS
G

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Marit van Dijk - Developer Advocate at JetBrains, Java Champion & Open Source Contributor
Hannes Lowette - Principal Consultant at Axxes, Monolith Advocate, Speaker & Whiskey Lover

RESOURCES
Marit
https://bsky.app/profile/maritvandijk.bsky.social
https://linkedin.com/in/maritvandijk
https://github.com/mlvandijk
https://medium.com/@mlvandijk
https://maritvandijk.com

Hannes
https://bsky.app/profile/hanneslowette.net
https://twitter.com/hannes_lowette
https://github.com/Belenar
https://linkedin.com/in/hanneslowette

Links
https://www.felienne.com
https://codereading.club
https://github.com/neontribe/code-reading-club

DESCRIPTION
Reading code is a critical yet often underappreciated skill in software development. Marit van Dijk & Hannes Lowette highlight that while developers are trained to write code, they spend most of their time understanding existing codebases—often with incomplete documentation and evolving complexity.

They discuss research-backed strategies, such as structured code reading exercises, participation in communities like the Code Reading Club, and leveraging modern IDE tools to navigate and comprehend unfamiliar code. The conversation underscores the importance of empathy in code reviews, writing clear commit messages, and using tests as documentation to improve collaboration and maintainability. By practicing code reading deliberately and utilizing available resources, developers can become more effective and adaptable in their work.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Felienne Hermans • The Programmer's Brain
Adrienne Braganza Tacke • "Looks Good to Me": Constructive Code Reviews
Duncan

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Ben Evans - Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat & Co-Author of "Optimizing Cloud Native Java" and many more Books
Holly Cummins - Senior Principal Software Engineer on the Red Hat Quarkus Team

RESOURCES
Ben
https://mastodon.social/@kittylyst
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kittylyst
https://www.kittylyst.com

Holly
https://hollycummins.com
https://bsky.app/profile/hollycummins.com
https://hachyderm.io/@holly_cummins
https://linkedin.com/in/holly-k-cummins

DESCRIPTION
Holly Cummins talks with Ben Evans about his latest book "Optimizing Cloud Native Java", which updates his previous work "Optimizing Java" to reflect the realities of cloud native environments.

Ben explains that performance engineering is not just technical but also psychological, emphasizing the importance of user expectations and defining clear performance goals. They discuss how modern Java performance must account for cloud native architectures, with applications running across distributed microservices and containerized, single-core environments.

The book focuses on the importance of measuring relevant data, warns against relying on misleading micro-benchmarks, and highlights how system-level benchmarks offer a clearer picture. Ben also delves into the JVM's hidden complexities, such as changes in Java 17 and the impact of virtual threads. Practical, real-world examples in the book, like the "fighting animals" microservices application, help developers learn how to optimize Java performance in real network environments.

Finally, Ben touches on the future of Java concurrency, with virtual threads and structured concurrency offering new ways to handle performance challenges in cloud native systems.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Ben Evans & Jim Gough • Optimizing Cloud Native Java
Ben Evans, Jason Clark & D

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Anne Currie - Co-Author of "The Cloud Native Attitude" & "Building Green Software"
Sarah Wells - Independent Consultant & Author & Author of "Enabling Microservice Success"

RESOURCES
Anne
https://bsky.app/profile/annecurrie.bsky.social
https://www.strategically.green

Sarah
https://bsky.app/profile/sarahjwells.bsky.social
https://www.sarahwells.dev
https://linkedin.com/in/sarahjwells1

DESCRIPTION
Sarah Wells and Anne Currie dive into “The Cloud Native Attitude” and uncover why it’s more than just using cloud infrastructure. It’s about breaking bottlenecks, embracing rapid change, and aligning the entire organization.

Anne reflects on how Kubernetes has risen since the book’s first edition, but the core principles remain. They discuss why CI/CD is key, how cloud native supports sustainability, and why true transformation demands more than just a lift-and-shift. The conversation wraps up with practical advice on identifying real bottlenecks and securing buy-in for a successful cloud native journey.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Anne Currie & Jamie Dobson • The Cloud Native Attitude
Anne Currie, Sarah Hsu, & Sara Bergman • Building Green Software
Sarah Wells • Enabling Microservice Success
Bill Gates • How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Liz Rice • Container Security
Burns, Beda & Hightower • Kubernetes: Up & Running
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais • Team Topologies

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James Phoenix - Co-Author of "Prompt Engineering for Generative AI"
Mike Taylor - Co-Author of "Prompt Engineering for Generative AI"
Phil Winder - Author of "Reinforcement Learning" & CEO of Winder.AI

RESOURCES
James
https://x.com/jamesaphoenix12
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesphoenix
https://understandingdata.com

Mike
http://saxifrage.xyz
https://twitter.com/hammer_mt
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mjt145

Phil
https://twitter.com/DrPhilWinder
https://linkedin.com/in/drphilwinder
https://winder.ai

Links
https://brightpool.dev
https://karpathy.ai
https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6654000
https://gemini.google.com
https://dreambooth.github.io
https://github.com/microsoft/LoRA
https://claude.ai
https://www.langchain.com/langgraph

DESCRIPTION
Large language models (LLMs) and diffusion models such as ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion have unprecedented potential. Because they have been trained on all the public text and images on the internet, they can make useful contributions to a wide variety of tasks. And with the barrier to entry greatly reduced today, practically any developer can harness LLMs and diffusion models to tackle problems previously unsuitable for automation.

With this book, you'll gain a solid foundation in generative AI, including how to apply these models in practice. When first integrating LLMs and diffusion models into their

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Eli Holderness - Research Software Advocate at Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science, Speaker & Professional Nerd
Hannes Lowette - Principal Consultant at Axxes, Monolith Advocate, Speaker & Whiskey Lover

RESOURCES
Eli
https://bsky.app/profile/eli.holderness.dev
https://twitter.com/eliholderness
https://hachyderm.io/@eli
https://linkedin.com/in/eli-holderness-4890b886
https://github.com/eli-miriam
https://eli.holderness.dev

Hannes
https://bsky.app/profile/hanneslowette.net
https://twitter.com/hannes_lowette
https://github.com/Belenar
https://linkedin.com/in/hanneslowette

Links
https://www.opensafely.org
https://docs.opensafely.org/ehrql
https://github.com/opensafely-core/ehrql

DESCRIPTION
OpenSAFELY represents a revolutionary approach to medical research that prioritizes patient privacy while enabling valuable insights from healthcare data. Rather than giving researchers direct access to sensitive GP records, it allows them to submit code that runs in a secure environment, with only privacy-checked aggregated results returned.

Hannes Lowette talks to Eli Holderness about how the system works, its benefits for ensuring reproducible science, the challenges of working with data not collected for research purposes, and its potential applications beyond healthcare. The approach balances the need for medical research with strict privacy protections, ensuring patients maintain trust in how their sensitive data is used.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Ben Goldacre • Bad Science
Ben Goldacre • Bad Pharma
Aaron Parecki • OAuth 2.0 Simplified

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Randy Shoup - SVP Engineering at Thrive Market
Charles Humble - Freelance Techie, Podcaster, Editor, Author & Consultant

RESOURCES
Randy
https://bsky.app/profile/randyshoup.bsky.social
https://medium.com/@randyshoup
https://x.com/randyshoup
https://github.com/randyshoup-thrive
https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyshoup

Charles
https://bsky.app/profile/charleshumble.bsky.social
https://linkedin.com/in/charleshumble
https://mastodon.social/@charleshumble
https://conissaunce.com

Links
https://se-radio.net/2008/09/episode-109-ebays-architecture-principles-with-randy-shoup

DESCRIPTION
Charles Humble sits down with veteran tech leader Randy Shoup, now SVP of Engineering at Thrive Market.
Randy discusses Thrive Market’s evolution from a 10-year-old monolith to a microservices architecture, emphasizing domain-driven design and agile scaling. Drawing on his experiences at eBay and other tech giants, he explains when to adopt microservices and the importance of continuous delivery and platform engineering for boosting productivity.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Sam Newman • Monolith to Microservices
Sam Newman • Building Resilient Distributed Systems
Dave Farley & Jez Humble • Continuous Delivery
Forsgren, Humble & Kim • Accelerate
Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Nicole Forsgren, Patrick Debois & John Willis • The DevOps Handbook
Gregor Hohpe • Platform Strategy
Ford, Parsons, Kua & Sadalage • Building Evolutionary Architectures

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Nat Pryce - Co-Author of "Growing Object­-Oriented Software Guided by Tests" & "Java to Kotlin"
Duncan McGregor - Co-Author of "Java to Kotlin" & Independent Consultant

RESOURCES
Nat
https://mastodon.social/@natpryce
https://github.com/npryce
https://x.com/natpryce
https://www.linkedin.com/in/natpryce
http://www.natpryce.com

Duncan
https://twitter.com/duncanmcg
https://www.linkedin.com/in/duncan-mcgregor-a3038b6
https://github.com/dmcg
http://www.oneeyedmen.com
https://java-to-kotlin.dev

Links
https://www.meetup.com/extreme-tuesday-club-xtc
https://guava.dev/releases/21.0/api/docs/com/google/common/base/Function.html

DESCRIPTION
This conversation between Duncan McGregor and Nat Pryce explores the legacy of Nat's co-authored book "Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests" (GOOS) and how software development practices have evolved in the past 15 years.

They discuss the origins of test-driven development (TDD) within London's Extreme Tuesday Club, the shift from object-oriented to functional programming paradigms, and how changing technology has influenced development approaches.

Key topics include outside-in vs bottom-up testing strategies, mock objects, the rise of microservices, and whether modern development practices have actually improved productivity.
The conversation provides valuable historical context for understanding current software development trends while questioning whether some modern practices represent true progress.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Duncan McGregor & Nat Pryce • Java to Kotlin
Steve Freeman & Nat Pryce • Growing Object-Oriented Software (GOOS)
Uberto Barbini • From

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Adrienne Braganza Tacke - Senior Developer Advocate at Viam Robotics & Author of "Looks Good To Me: Constructive Code Reviews"
Saša Jurić - Author of "Elixir in Action" & The Ultimate Beacon in the Elixir Space

RESOURCES
Adrienne
https://bsky.app/profile/abt.bsky.social
https://x.com/AdrienneTacke
https://github.com/AdrienneTacke
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriennetacke
https://www.instagram.com/adriennetacke
https://www.adrienne.io
https://blog.adrienne.io

Saša
https://bsky.app/profile/sasajuric.bsky.social
https://twitter.com/sasajuric
https://github.com/sasa1977
https://linkedin.com/in/sa%C5%A1a-juri%C4%87-21b23186
https://www.theerlangelist.com

DESCRIPTION
Adrienne Braganza, author of "Looks Good to Me: Constructive Code Reviews", and Saša Jurić, author of “Elixir in Action”, explore best practices for effective code reviews. They discuss how smaller, well-organized pull requests lead to better feedback, the importance of comment classification, and when to take discussions offline. Both emphasize that code reviews aren't just about catching bugs—they're crucial for knowledge transfer and creating cohesive codebases.

While AI tools can help with routine aspects, human judgment remains essential, especially as AI-generated code becomes more common. The speakers agree that when done well, code reviews become one of the most valuable practices in software development.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Adrienne Braganza Tacke • "Looks Good to Me": Constructive Code Reviews
Adrienne Braganza Tacke • Coding for Kids
Saša Jurić • Elixir in Action
Grace Huang • Code

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Russ Miles - Engineering Manager, Chaos Engineering Practitioner & Co-Author of "Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms"
James Lewis - Software Architect & Director at Thoughtworks

RESOURCES
Russ
https://bsky.app/profile/russmiles.bsky.social
https://github.com/russmiles
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russmiles

James
https://bsky.app/profile/boicy.bovon.org
https://twitter.com/boicy
https://linkedin.com/in/james-lewis-microservices
https://github.com/boicy
https://www.bovon.org

DESCRIPTION
In this episode of GOTO Book Club, James Lewis and Russ Miles discuss Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPPs), focusing on how they promote collaboration across security and development teams.

Russ shares insights from his book, emphasizing the importance of OODA loops, balancing innovation with safety in platform design, and the benefits of off-the-shelf versus custom CNAPP solutions. Looking ahead, he predicts platform engineering will evolve into a commercial strategy like AWS and that AI will augment human decision-making, enhancing creativity and collaboration in the engineering field.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Miles, Giguere & Smith • Cloud Native Application Protection Platforms
Mina, Warda, Marins & Miles • Digitalization of Financial Services in the Age of Cloud
Russ Miles • Learning Chaos Engineering
Dan Pilone & Russ Miles • Head First Software Development
Kathy Sierra • Badass

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