Kodsnack 631 - Comfortable in uncertainty, with Barry O'Reilly

Fredrik talks to Barry O’Reilly about software architecture.

Barry has spent a lot of time and energy connecting software architecture to actual code and development work, and finding good ways of actually training new generations of software architects.

Architecture is a level above programming, it is a different skill, and it needs to be properly taught so that more people can think and make active decisions about it. Oh, and architecture happens at a group level. You can’t really do it alone.

Barry’s quest led him to complexity science, a PhD to actually prove his ideas hold up, and two books. The idea that you have to understand what goes on in the code in order to do good architecture is more controversial than one might think.

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Links

• Barry
• Black tulip
• Complexity science
• IDE
• Antifragile
• Nassim Taleb
• Nassim guesting Econtalk talking about antifragility while the book was in progress
• Barry’s papers:
  • No More Snake Oil: Architecting Agility through Antifragility (2019)
  • An introduction to residuality theory: Software design heuristics for complex systems (2020)
  • The Machine in the Ghost: Autonomy, Hyperconnectivity, and Residual Causality (2021)
  • The Philosophy of Residuality Theory (2021)
  • Residuality Theory, random simulation, and attractor networks(2022)
  • Residuality and Representation: Toward a Coherent Philosophy of Software Architecture (2023)
• Domain driven design Europe
• Leanpub
• Residues - Barry’s first book
• Barry’s NDC talks - on process and on philosophy
• Support us on Ko-fi
• Our agile release train engineer stickers
• The architect’s paradox - Barry’s second book
• Accelerate
• Øredev
• Kodsnack 346 - Tomer Gabel about the golden age of tomfoolery
• Dataföreningen
• Dataföreningen kompetens

Titles

• How we design and think about structure
• Climbed the greasy pole
• Keep close to the code
• Remove themselves from the code as a status symbol
• I would see a lot of grey
• There’s a generation missing
• A level of thinking above programming
• When you look up from your IDE
• We had to rescue architecture
• When they say “architect”
• Headed for that ivory tower
• A self-titling profession
• Comfortable in uncertainty
• Multiple books, and a PhD
• How does this thing break
• Everything will always break
• Patching those cracks
• Do you have any proof of this?
• The key to good software architecture is pessimism
• The mincing of academic criticism
• Typing furiously
• Hope for the future
• He’s from the real world!