O'Reilly Programming Podcast - O'Reilly Media Podcast

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Sam Newman on moving from monolith systems to microservices Jun 29, 2017

Show notes

The O’Reilly Programming Podcast: Principles for the successful adoption of microservices.

In this episode of the O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk about microservices with Sam Newman, presenter of the O’Reilly video course The Principles of Microservices and the online training course From Monolith to Microservices. He is also the author of the book Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems.

Discussion points:

For organizations considering migrating from monolith systems to microservices, Neman suggests moving gradually, by starting with one or two services at the beginning, getting them deployed, and assessing the outcome.
Newman identifies independent deployability as one of the key principles for doing microservices well. “If you create a system architecture with independent deployability, so many benefits flow from that,” he says.
He recommends a “consumers first” focus for microservices, with designs based on how software will be implemented by customers.
How microservices can enable cost-effective scaling
In discussing modularity, Newman says “If you want to look at a system that gets modules right, look at Erlang, which was built from the ground up to be a language and a runtime for building distributed systems.”

Other links:

Videos of presentations from the 2017 O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference, held in New York in April
The work of modular programming pioneer David Parnas
Microsoft’s Azure Service Fabric

Ben Evans on Java 9 Jun 15, 2017

Show notes

The O’Reilly Programming Podcast: Thoughts on performance, modularity, and what’s next for Java.

In this episode of the O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk with Ben Evans, co-founder and technology fellow at JClarity, and co-author of the forthcoming O’Reilly book Optimizing Java: Practical Techniques for Improved Performance Tuning. We discuss the upcoming release of Java 9, Java performance issues, and Evans’ experience as an organizer for the London Java Community.

Discussion points:

While praising the engineering work that’s been done for Java 9, Evans says he sees “nothing desperately compelling” to encourage developers to upgrade. “It’s a fairly bare cupboard for developers who want new productivity features,” he says.
That said, Evans sees Java 9 as a stepping stone that will possibly enable radical new features to be delivered in Java 10 and 11. “It would not surprise me to see a world where very few people make the jump from 8 to 9, and a lot of people go straight from 8 to 10,” he says.
We discuss the controversy surrounding the Java Platform Module System, Project Jigsaw, which has led to the delay of the release of Java 9.
On the topic of measuring Java performance numbers, Evans cautions against microbenchmarking. “Over optimizing for microbenchmarks is actually harmful,” he says, noting Google’s recent decision to retire the Octane benchmark.

Other links:

The video course Introduction to Java 8, presented by Ben Evans and Martjin Verburg
The video course Practical Scala for Java Developers, presented by Julian Templeman and Ben Evans
The Learning Path Beginning Java Second Edition
Evans’ recent InfoQ article “Under the Hood with the JVM’s Automatic Resource Management”

Jason Hibbets on open source cities Jun 01, 2017

Show notes

The O’Reilly Programming Podcast: Applying open source practices beyond software.

In this episode of the O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk with Jason Hibbets, senior community evangelist in corporate marketing at Red Hat, where he is a community manager for Opensource.com. We discuss how the open source model can be applied to other disciplines beyond technology, especially in the area of open government.

Discussion points:

Hibbets describes OpenSource.com as an open source storytelling platform and discusses some of the stories published there, including coverage of an open high school in Utah and brain cancer patients who advocate for the sharing of health data.
His book, The Foundation for an Open Source City, covers the experience in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he has been active in numerous civic hacking projects.
The characteristics of an open source city, according to Hibbets, include a culture of citizen participation, an effective open government policy, and an open data initiative.
Hibbets cites as a successful example of civic hacking the "Adopt-a" programs ("a bug tracking tool for city infrastructure"), which started in Boston and have since expanded to other cities.
How programmers can get involved in civic hacking through the Code for America Brigade program and other means.

Other links:

A video of the presentation How Does Raleigh Use Open Source, by Jason Hibbets and Gail Roper, from the 2014 O’Reilly OSCON conference
The book Crowdocracy, by Alan Watkins and Iman Stratenus
The OpenStack Summit, held in Boston May 8-11

Paris Buttfield-Addison on what’s new in Swift programming May 18, 2017

Show notes

The O’Reilly Programming Podcast: Applying the latest language features to build video games and containerized microservices.

In this episode of the O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk about Swift with Paris Buttfield-Addison, co-founder of Secret Lab, a mobile development studio that builds games and apps for mobile devices. He is the co-author of Learning Swift, and a presenter of the Learning Path Getting Started with Swift on the iPad and the video Ultimate Swift Programming.

Discussion points:

The Swift Playground app, which Buttfield-Addison calls “a great programming testing environment and a concise way to get people up to speed with the language.”
The appeal of the Swift language to game developers. “Swift is one of the few opportunities we have to develop games in a modern language for a platform we know people will actually use,” he says.
Building containerized microservices with Swift: “It’s really interesting to see how far Swift has come in the three years it’s been around. You’re able to write a fairly full-fledged web framework, put it in a container, and deploy it,” he says.
Buttfield-Addison explains why it’s easy to build a game in Unity: “You have to write less code, so fewer mistakes are on your side, and more is taken care of by the engine.”

I also talk with Brian Foster, content lead at O’Reilly and co-chair of O’Reilly’s Software Architecture Conference, about some of the most discussed topics (including microservices, serverless architecture, and reactive architecture) at the conference in April 2017.

Other links:

The free report What’s New in Swift 3, by Paris Buttfield-Addison, John Manning, and Tim Nugent
The next O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference, October 16-18, 2017, in London
IBM’s Kitura framework for building microservices written in Swift
Apple’s SpriteKit for game design
The books Mobile Game Development with Unity and Swift Development for the Apple Watch, co-authored by Buttfield-Addison
Buttfield-Addison is part of the organizing team for the /dev/world/2017 conference, August 28-30, 2017, in Melbourne

Neal Ford on evolutionary architecture May 04, 2017

Show notes

The O’Reilly Programming Podcast: Building an architecture that can adapt to change.

In the first episode of our new O’Reilly Programming Podcast, I talk about software architecture and the concept of “evolutionary architecture” with Neal Ford, director, software architect, and meme wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy that focuses on end-to-end software development and delivery. Ford is presenting two sessions at OSCON 2017, O’Reilly’s Open Source Convention, and he is a co-author of the forthcoming O’Reilly book Building Evolutionary Architectures.

Discussion points:

Software architecture’s increasing popularity over the last few years; Ford says that “companies such as Netflix and Amazon showed that if you do software architecture really well, you build a competitive advantage over everybody else.”
The non-functional requirements and soft skills needed to successfully implement software architecture.
How evolutionary architecture enables you to adapt to the future rather than predict it; Ford notes the pitfalls of “trying to do predictive planning against an incredibly dynamic ecosystem.”
Why guided change and incremental change are the two characteristics of an evolutionary architecture.
The difference between evolutionary and adaptive systems.

I also talk with Ally MacDonald, O’Reilly editor and a program chair of O’Reilly’s Fluent Conference, June 19-22, 2017, in San Jose, California, about the topics of the event’s sessions and training courses.

Other links: