Hate your organization instead — If you’ve been an engineer at an appreciably-sized org, then you’ve certainly experienced this scenario: You belong to a team that owns some number of applications or services. Since your team designed and developed them, you know them inside and out. The code is pristine — or at least, legible…

The answer is ”as soon as your entity is created“… but is it really that simple? — Awhile back, a colleague and I were discussing the technical design of an application that we were building. In this context, our rich client was generating a piece of data and posting it through a ReST API. This data represented a discrete entity; as such, it needed to be assigned…

How can you pass JVM arguments into a non-existent Run Configuration? — One of the great things about an IDE like Eclipse is how easy it is to run your application on the fly, as you’re developing it. Eclipse uses the concept of a Run Configuration for this. Run Configurations define your code’s entry point (i.e. …

LEGIBILITYMATTERSMORETHANGRAMMAR… or, rather, LegibilityMattersMoreThanGrammar — I like to be productive and efficient. So anything that unnecessarily wastes even a few moments of my time… well, it really bugs me. That is why I am particularly bugged by a particular practice (nay, an anti-practice) that I see too often. …

It’s all about the rhythm — Sometimes a vocal line in a rock or pop song hits you just so. In what might otherwise be a fairly standard tune — maybe even a cliché one —along comes a measure or two of singing that really stands out…. and for whatever reason, really pulls you in. Now…

And more importantly… why does it matter? — In many of the articles I’ve written — particularly those discussing microservice architectures — I’ve drawn a direct line between technical architectures and organizational structures. This idea, of course, has parallels with Conway’s famous Law. But in my discussions, I’ve tried to emphasize one specific point: If your engineering organization…

Aren’t they really just the same thing? — Domain Driven Design — or DDD — is a software design methodology popularized by Eric Evans. DDD focuses on domains; that is, subject areas within an organization, coupled with the experts of those subject areas. For those of us working with microservices, two particularly useful patterns have arisen out of…

The wrong perspective can doom a microservices effort from the start — Most of us know up front that moving to microservices will be difficult. It will be a long process — many months, or years even. It’ll be tough, and scary. Sort of like entering a huge, pitch-black cavern, replete with labyrinth-like twists and turns. With little to help guide us…

Someday you’ll die from some cause, but odds are, it won’t be any of these — Let’s face it: life is perilous. Everywhere we turn, we’re faced with something that can kill us. Most of us could easily rattle off a list of threats— from avalanches to airline crashes, hippos to heart disease — that are just waiting to claim us as their next victims. …