Coding the Architecture - presentations tag

Architecture tutorial @ QCon London 2008

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:40:00 GMT

Just a quick note to say that, in just over a week, Kevin Seal and myself are running an all-day tutorial at QCon London 2008. Entitled Coding the Architecture : From Developer to Architect, this tutorial explains what architecture is and how to architect a software system.

This session is an interactive introduction to software architecture and what it means to be a software architect. It's aimed at software developers who are looking towards their first software architect role, as well as architects that are new to the role. By attending this session you will gain:

An understanding of what it means to be a software architect and the responsibilities associated with the role.

An understanding of the trade-offs that are made when making architectural decisions.

Some experience of what it feels like to be an architect on a bespoke software development project; including gathering non-functional requirements, determining the drivers for architecture and defining an architecture.
An understanding that, as a software architect, it's okay to do some coding.

The session is interactive; with a combination of presentation, group discussion and group working. Throughout the day you'll be solidifying everything you learn by defining the architecture for a small software system. The overall goal is that you can take the experience gained here and apply it to your own projects.

This should be quite a fun day and we're really looking forward to it. If you're reading this and would like to attend but can't, do get in touch and maybe we can sort a re-run out.

The Pragmatic Java Architect sessions in London

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:53:00 GMT

Myself and the other contributors to The Pragmatic Architect are running a couple of unconference style sessions in London over the next few weeks. The first is at the London JSIG (5th April, 12-2pm) and the second is at Skills Matter (19th April, 6:30-8:30pm). The basic idea of the sessions is to share our own experiences of what it means to be an architect on a Java project. Of course, we don't claim to know everything, so we're really interested in hearing about other people's experiences too, which is why these sessions are discussion rather than presentation based. Here's a summary of the session.

The role of a technical architect requires a balance of deep technical and non-technical skills, combined with a broad knowledge of the software development process. It can be a tough role and something that you can't just step into overnight. Couple this with the huge number of options available for building Java SE and EE systems and it's easy to become overwhelmed.

This is a roundtable session where members of thepragmaticarchitect.com share their experiences of their roles as Java architects on Finance projects in London. Come along to listen to and ask questions about the following sorts of topics:

Technology selection: Full stack Java EE or lightweight Spring? Commercial or open source?

Architecture selection: How do you decide upon an architecture given the vast choice of Java APIs and libraries? How do you prove the chosen architecture meets your non-functional requirements?

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA): How do you build an SOA with Java EE?

Deployment choices: How do you decide which platform and topology is right for you?

Quality assurance: How good is "good enough" and which tools really do add value during development? Eclipse, IDEA, Netbeans or something else?

Automated testing with JUnit: How combining full stack system tests with traditional unit tests really make a difference.

Development process: Why understanding your options is important and how to introduce iterative/agile working practices into a "traditional" team.

Balance: What do you do when you get caught up in the day to day development and forget about your architecture responsibilities?

Pragmatism: How do you ensure that your project is done right while still meeting your deadlines?

Do you really need a Java architect?

Architects and aspiring architects should find this session interesting so we hope to see you there.

PowerPoint architects

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 21:11:01 GMT

As an architect, I find myself doing more presentations than I did when I was in a pure development role. No, this isn't a post about how to become that type of PowerPoint architect, it's a post to highlight a couple of very useful resources that will help you deliver better presentations.

I don't confess to being an expert in presentations and their delivery, but the thing to remember is (a) presentations can be very dull and (b) people get bored very quickly. Depending on your audience, there are alternatives to presentations such as facilitating a group discussion or unconferencing. That said, there are times when presentations are the most appropriate way to deliver your information. So, with this in mind, how can you make your presentations as good as possible? Practice and feedback are very important, but in addition to this are a couple of websites that I highly recommend for anybody wanting to learn about presenting, presentation styles and alternative ways to use PowerPoint.

Director's blog : Your message and other things you say : This is a blog about the experiences of a communications consultant who writes about his thoughts, tips and observations around communication and presenting. [subscribe]
Presentation Zen : A blog about putting together professional presentations, particularly focussed on the delivery of information in the most effective way using strong messages and visuals. [subscribe]

I've personally found both of these websites very insightful and they've certainly influenced the way that I approach presentations. Do you have any good resources related to presentations and/or the effective communication of information? If so, please leave a comment.