Science and Engineering in Software Architecture

We are passing through tough times, “The moment everything changed” with COVID-19, quarantine, people trying adapt their day to day, companies not prepared to work remotely… On top of that, one thing that I have seen is a lack of science in different aspects. Lots of assumptions, lack of data and a complete chaos.

In engineering, one thing that we don’t want is chaos — WHAT?! But what about chaos mindset, chaos engineering? — don’t get me wrong, as engineers , we accept chaos and live with it, but build stable and resilient systems on top of it.

According to wikipedia, “Scientists study things by looking at them very carefully, by measuring them, and by doing experiments and tests. Scientists try to explain why things act the way they do, and predict what will happen” and also “Science uses mathematics and logic, which are sometimes called ‘formal sciences’.”, “ Science produces accurate facts, scientific laws and theories”. And as you well know, against facts there are no arguments.
Science is about exploring, experimentation, discovery and, of course, data. Please, data. Let’s base our propositions, our argues and discussions on concrete things…

#software-architecture #software-methodology #computer-science #software-improvement #software-engineering

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Science and Engineering in Software Architecture

We are passing through tough times, “The moment everything changed” with COVID-19, quarantine, people trying adapt their day to day, companies not prepared to work remotely… On top of that, one thing that I have seen is a lack of science in different aspects. Lots of assumptions, lack of data and a complete chaos.

In engineering, one thing that we don’t want is chaos — WHAT?! But what about chaos mindset, chaos engineering? — don’t get me wrong, as engineers , we accept chaos and live with it, but build stable and resilient systems on top of it.

According to wikipedia, “Scientists study things by looking at them very carefully, by measuring them, and by doing experiments and tests. Scientists try to explain why things act the way they do, and predict what will happen” and also “Science uses mathematics and logic, which are sometimes called ‘formal sciences’.”, “ Science produces accurate facts, scientific laws and theories”. And as you well know, against facts there are no arguments.
Science is about exploring, experimentation, discovery and, of course, data. Please, data. Let’s base our propositions, our argues and discussions on concrete things…

#software-architecture #software-methodology #computer-science #software-improvement #software-engineering

Software Developer vs Software Engineer — Differences: Bogus or Real?

Software Developers vs Software Engineers

Personally, it pisses me off. Every time I see an article on this topic, my emotional bank account gets robbed. They are all about SEO. Inappropriate keywords squeezed into tiny sentences just to get better rankings. No intent to entertain or enlighten the reader whatsoever. Sometimes, such articles can even be outright wrong.

And even though the purpose of this blog post can be to generate traffic, I tried to make it more of a meaningful rant than a lifeless academic essay.

So, let’s see how you feel by the time you are done reading this paper.

Without further ado:

Since there are no proper interpretations of both terms, a lot of people use them interchangeably.

However, some companies consider these terms as job titles.

The general “programmer-developer-engineer” trend goes along the lines of:

• A programmer is someone who knows how to code, understands algorithms and can follow instructions. Yet, it doesn’t go further in regards to responsibilities.
• A developer is someone superior to the programmer. Except for coding, they also do design, architecture, and technical documentation of the software component they are building. They might be referred to as leaders, but not necessarily.
• Finally, an engineer implies that you are the real deal. You’ve graduated with a degree, have some tech knowledge, and preferably experience… and you are capable of designing a software system (a combination of software components your peons, the programmers, have built). You’re like an overseer. You can see the bigger picture. And it’s your responsibility to clearly explain that “picture” to your team.

#devops #software development #programming #software engineering #software developer #programmer #software engineer #software engineering career

Road to Simplicity: Hexagonal Architecture [Part One]

Software writing taught me that: a well written software is a simple software.

So I started to think how to achieve simplicity in a methodological

way. This is the first story of a series about this methodology.

Naturally it’s a snapshot because it’s in constant evolution.

Simplicity

A definition of simplicity is:

The quality or condition of being easy to understand or do.

Oxford dictionary (https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/simplicity)

So, a simple software is a software that is easy to understand.

After all software are written by humans for humans. This implies

that they should be understandable. Simplicity guarantees that its

understandability isn’t an intellectual pain.

A software solves a problem. So to build the former you should understand the latter.

But to build a simple software you should understand - clearly - a problem.

First step: architecture

On the Martin Fowler blog there is a deep definition of architecture and its explanation:

“Architecture is about the important stuff. Whatever that is.”

On first blush, that sounds trite, but I find it carries a lot of richness.

It means that the heart of thinking architecturally about software is to decide what is important, (i.e. what is architectural), and then expend energy on keeping those architectural elements in good condition.

Ultimately the important stuffs are about the solved problem. In other words about the software domain.

So we need an architecture that allows us to express - clearly - the software domain.

I think that the hexagonal architecture (a.k.a. ports and adapter architecture) is an ideal candidate.

It’s based on layered architecture, so the outer layer depends on the inner layer. Each layer is represented as a hexagon.

Here a UML-like diagram to express the below concepts:

In this architecture the innermost hexagon is dedicated to the

software domain. Here we define domain objects and we express clearly:

• what the domain does as input port or use case (I prefer the latter because expressiveness).
• what the domain need, to fulfill use cases, as output port.

Conceptually on the sides of the domain layer there are use case and output port interfaces.

The communication between the outer layers and the domain layer happens through these interfaces.

The outer layer provides output port implementations and they use the use case interfaces.

The implementations and use case clients are are called adapter. Because they adapt our interface to a specific technology.

This relation is an instance of the dependency inversion principle. Simply put: high level concept, the domain, doesn’t rely on a specific

technology. Instead low level concept depends upon high level concept.

In other words our code is technology agnostic.

As you can see the concepts expressed in the outer layers are just details.

The real important stuff, the domain, is isolated and expressed clearly.

Code

A little project accompanies this series to show this methodology. It’s written in Java with the reactive paradigm from the beginning. For this reason the ReactiveX library is also used in the domain layer.

The software analyzes the capabilities (e.g. the java version, the

network speed and so on) of the machine and it exposes them through REST API.

It’s inspired by a real world software that I wrote because of work.

The first step is to define the innermost hexagon.

We can already identify:

• the main use case, expressed as GetCapabilitiesUseCase
• the object that describe the machine capabilities, expressed as Capabilities

The use case is an interface:

(if you never used ReactiveX: a Single means that the method will return asynchronously an object or an error)

public interface GetCapabilitiesUseCase {
  Single<Capabilities> getCapabilities();
}

The Capabilities objects are immutable (precisely they’re value objects). And there is an associated builder (I’m using lombok annotations to generate the code):

@RequiredArgsConstructor
@Value
@Builder
public class Capabilities {
  private final String javaVersion;
  private final Long networkSpeed;
}

#architecture #software-architecture #programming #java #hexagonal-architecture #reactive-programming #software-development #software-engineering

Interested in Learning to Program? 13 Reasons to Start Now

Software development is something that is gaining popularity at lightning speed with the development of technology. The demand for regular developers is high compared to most other mainstream professions. But, what are the other reasons for learning to code?

Given my experience as a software engineer and Java tutor, I’ve come up with many reasons, and, in this blog post, I am going to share them with you. I hope they will lead you to make an informed decision.

1. Generous Salary

Salary is a frequently discussed subject in a programming environment. Compared to many other industries, software engineering allows specialists to receive a way higher average wage.

To avoid being verbose and prove that you are a future high-demand expert, I will give you real numbers based on data from Glassdoor, the job and recruiting website. The salary rate is the average between the length of service and all geographical data. It also depends on the coding language you are mastering.

• Java developer — $79,137 / yr
• Python developer — $76,526 / yr
• JavaScript developer — $79,137 / yr
• Go developer — $75,715 / yr
• Ruby developer — $75,715 / yr
• C Net developer — $75,715 / yr
• Swift developer — $75,715 / yr
• C++ developer — $76,526 / yr

2. Stability in the Industry

Software development is one of the industries that show comparatively stable employment. Unlike many other occupations, computer professional activities face a significantly lower unemployment rate even during a pandemic. See the table below.

Although the industry is stable enough, the technology moves fast, which means the specialists will hardly be able to use all those skills they have now in 2–5–10 years. The good news is that many IT companies contribute to the professional development of their software engineers because using modern tools consequently leads to their business success. So, if you constantly update your skills, you don’t have to worry about losing your job.

3. Professional Opportunities

When you are good at coding, you have more options. You can decide whether you want to join a large company or a small one as a programmer. You can start your own startup or choose to work as a freelancer without being tied to a place. You can most likely get an offer and move to another country for relocation. Everything depends on your goals.

4. Additional Skills to Put on Your Resume

Knowing how to program not only improves your way of thinking, but it also makes your CV stand out among others, even if you’re engaged in the indirect activities, like software testing, digital design, system administration, business or data analyst. Mentioning you are good at programming gives hiring managers a better understanding of your ability to think critically and grasp advanced topics quickly.

#programming #software-development #software-developer #software-engineering #software-engineer #computer-science #learning-to-code #coding

Custom Software vs Off-the-shelf Software: How to select a better one for your business?

Custom Software or Off-the-shelf software, the question in mind for many business personnel. Read this blog to get help to make the right decision that will benefit your business.
For a business that wants to upgrade and modernize itself with the help of software, a common dilemma it is whether to go for custom-made software or opt for off-the-shelf software. You can find many top software development companies worldwide, but before that all, you should first decide the type of software –an off-the-shelf software or a custom one.
This blog aims to overcome the dilemma and accord some clarity to a business looking to automate its business processes.

#custom software vs off-the-shelf software #custom software development companies #top software development companies #off-the-shelf software development #customized software solution #custom software development