Jekyll 2023-03-27T16:52:00+01:00 https://www.julianbrowne.com/rss/posts.xml Periodic essays on software architecture, development and technology management in start-ups, scale-ups and the corporate enterprise https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/the-95/ 2023-03-27T00:00:00+01:00 2023-03-27T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

It's easy to get carried away with the notion of productivity. It's important but it's also important not to single out highly productive people and compare them to others. It's the varied differences in teams which are both unavoidable and can be harnessed to do better work. Not talking about 10x developers is good for team diversity and avoiding tech-bro monocultures.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/blockchain/ 2023-03-14T00:00:00+00:00 2023-03-14T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

The second in a two-part series looking at the evolution of the architecture of the web and its future. This article interactively explores blockchain technology and Web3 (vs Web 3.0) to predict that Web3 will fade away and probably take blockchain with it.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/100-year-architecture/ 2023-02-28T00:00:00+00:00 2023-02-28T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

What do we think about when we design software architectures to last? The modern web is a great example of a software architecture that has stood the test of time but it took some crazy thinking and an atomic bomb to get there.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/sacred-cows/ 2023-02-21T00:00:00+00:00 2023-02-21T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Lots of businesses are striving to be 'digital' and yet when it comes to making changes to the way they work with tech and product teams they won't do simple things that make a huge difference

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/tech-culture/ 2023-02-13T00:00:00+00:00 2023-02-13T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

The most important thing to get right in any tech-powered busines is the culture. It may feel like we are making strides in this area but we're not. Mary Parker Follet had it nailed more than a hundred years ago.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/moving-to-the-cloud/ 2023-02-06T00:00:00+00:00 2023-02-06T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A short article on cloud migrations based on having done a few

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/risk-free-development/ 2023-01-31T00:00:00+00:00 2023-01-31T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

This article looks at the concept of risk and asks whether it really exists in the way we perceive it and whether that can be used to operate like it doesn't

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/creator-myth/ 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Product Management is an important part of modern software development but it's proving hard to successfully implement in organistions, especially those that have not quite got agile delivery working yet. This article looks at why that is and how you can address some of the main anti-patterns

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/death-by-customer/ 2018-10-13T00:00:00+01:00 2018-10-13T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

If companies want to get better at being agile and digital, whatever that means, they need to stop looking to rules and process for the answer. Most of all they need to stop expecting the appointment of an agile coach to change them. Make the company a happy one and the rest will follow.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/scaling-agility/ 2016-12-01T00:00:00+00:00 2016-12-01T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/agile-killing-architect/ 2016-07-01T00:00:00+01:00 2016-07-01T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Has the rise of agile delvery killed off the role of the sofware architect in businesses, or is it still as relevent as it ever was?

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/freemarket-freelancer/ 2015-06-08T00:00:00+01:00 2015-06-08T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The market for contractors is all wrong. It should operate more like the film industry where top talent (not rockstars, or those with the loudest voices, but inidivduals who can make, and have made, a difference to the bottom line) gets recognised to the same degree and those that don't get walk-on parts only.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/happy-software/ 2015-04-26T00:00:00+01:00 2015-04-26T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/competence-debt/ 2014-05-03T00:00:00+01:00 2014-05-03T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A summary, and a little extension, to Ben Horowitz's book The Hard Thing About Hard Things

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/software-economics/ 2013-12-03T00:00:00+00:00 2013-12-03T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Everything large companies do to fund software projects is wrong. Large capital investments and a misguided attempt to separate 'software' from 'business' leads to poor requirements management, information arbitrage, and a general lack of diligence around budgets.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/rockstars/ 2013-10-29T00:00:00+00:00 2013-10-29T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Real rockstars can be assholes. That may be annoying but we tolerate it because we prioritise their art over their behaviour. This should not be the case with rock star developers. It's time to say goodbye to the notion that they produce good code or help our industry in any way.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/the-lean-architect/ 2013-03-18T00:00:00+00:00 2013-03-18T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Contrary to popular belief, the concepts of lean delivery and architecture are not mutually exclusive. The practices of architecture design are in many senses wasteful, but waste isn't a simple thing to define. Many types of wasteful activity are in fact highly valuable in the longer term.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/big-data-deception/ 2013-02-10T00:00:00+00:00 2013-02-10T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Big data is going to be awesome for the few select industries that have the skills and the need for it. But they are few and far between. Most of the others will just jump on the Big Data bandwagon as the next in a long line of money wasters that introduce more complexity into the enterprise.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/inevitability-of-evil/ 2013-02-07T00:00:00+00:00 2013-02-07T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Why are big companies so often seen as evil. Is corporate evil inevitable? Small companies don't seem to be tarnished with the evil brush. So is it related to how we view growth and is there a limit at which corporations should just stop growing and leave room for others to step in.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/easter-bunny/ 2012-09-01T00:00:00+01:00 2012-09-01T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Open source doesn't just work because it's better quality (generally) than closed source software. It works because it's far easier to weave knowledge of it into an organisation. If everybody can use it then anybody can become expert in it. The lack of licenses, training, etc demystifies and democratises software which massively improves it's changes of long term success in the business.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/the-new-new-tool/ 2011-11-05T00:00:00+00:00 2011-11-05T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A change story for everyday folk. Any similarities to projects ongoing or past are entirely intentional.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/nosql-in-the-enterprise/ 2011-07-31T00:00:00+01:00 2011-07-31T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Part two of series on NoSQL in the enterprise. This one specifically looks at MongoDB and all it's nuances and how these were managed in a corporate development setting.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/freedom-from-the-tyranny-of-schemas/ 2011-07-30T00:00:00+01:00 2011-07-30T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

This article, based on commercial experience, takes a pragmatic look at NoSQL and its fit with the conservative world of corporate IT. It covers how NoSQL products sit alongside relational alternatives, some of the issues experienced in breaking resistance to the concept, and how to overcome them.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/attraction-of-laws/ 2011-06-05T00:00:00+01:00 2011-06-05T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A short treatise on some of the most relevant eponymous laws as they may apply to the field of software engineering.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/secret-sauce/ 2011-05-29T00:00:00+01:00 2011-05-29T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Great software requires an understanding of the secret sauce that goes into making it. Enterprises that fall down when it comes to great architectures can also tap into this recipe. It turns out that architecture needs and good agile practices are actually one and the same.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/crisis-over/ 2011-01-30T00:00:00+00:00 2011-01-30T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Software development projects have problems, but software development doesn't.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/ungoverning-the-business/ 2010-11-13T00:00:00+00:00 2010-11-13T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Standards in enterprise IT aren't just irrelevent, they're devisive, dangerous and they restrict progress. You don't need governance and you don't need standards. You need checkpoints in the process you already have and a community that determines its own accepted practices and keeps them alive.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/hammer-time/ 2010-05-17T00:00:00+01:00 2014-05-13T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

IT in big corporates has become so afraid of making mistakes that hardly anybody will stand up and say following corporate platform standards, or waterfall design, might not be the best approach. This is a post in favour of (some) tool-first thinking.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/strained-relationships/ 2009-11-03T00:00:00+00:00 2009-11-03T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Just what is all this fuss about NoSQL? Is the relational database dead? Or are we just in need of alternative options to solve a new breed of problem?

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/law-and-order/ 2009-08-29T00:00:00+01:00 2009-08-29T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Has Enterprise Architecture had its day? All rise. The court is in session.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/quixotics-anonymous/ 2009-07-25T00:00:00+01:00 2009-07-25T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Quixotics Anonymous a special interest group for the down at heart in corporate IT. Patron Saint: C. Northcote Parkinson.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/gangsta-scale/ 2009-06-19T00:00:00+01:00 2009-06-19T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Enterprise integration had a tendency about ten years ago to be all asynchronous. Enterprise Architects, seduced by talk of cheap limitless scale from vendors, installed message based middeware everywhere. But asynchrony has some important constraints that aren't always obvious. This article illustrates one of these constraints using an example from The Wire TV show.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/walking-the-walk/ 2009-05-05T00:00:00+01:00 2009-05-05T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/estimation-game/ 2009-04-05T00:00:00+01:00 2009-04-05T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Much of what happens during portfolio planning is just wasting time on a wistful mirage.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/tactegic-stractical/ 2009-03-08T00:00:00+00:00 2009-03-08T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

When there's a clash of opinion on whether to go strategic or tactical, do not waste time debating how you could do the tactical first then deploy the strategic option later. It. Never. Happens.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/planning-the-plan/ 2009-01-25T00:00:00+00:00 2009-01-25T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Portfolio planning and the McFarlan Matrix in action.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/brewers-cap-theorem/ 2009-01-11T00:00:00+00:00 2009-01-11T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

An explanation of Eric Brewer's CAP theorem, which says you cannot have more than two of Consistency, Availability and Partition-tolerance in web-based distributed systems.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/super-geek-top-ten/ 2008-12-30T00:00:00+00:00 2008-12-30T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A super-geek top ten, exploring the more human side of some of the greatest computer scientists in history.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/event-driven-architecture/ 2008-12-07T00:00:00+00:00 2008-12-07T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

An introduction to the event-driven architecture and the subject of complex event processing as they apply to business.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/wife-swapping-art-conflict/ 2008-11-22T00:00:00+00:00 2008-11-22T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Great results requires great leadership, which is less about trying to get people to reach consensus than enabling productive conflict via the gift of the wife swap pattern.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/role-models-services/ 2008-11-09T00:00:00+00:00 2008-11-09T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Successful SOA is about being able to define real services and not confusing them with interfaces. The secret to services is roles.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/systemic-requirements/ 2008-11-01T00:00:00+00:00 2008-11-01T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Non-functional requirements, system constraints and qualities, systemic requirements. Whatever you call them, here they are.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/solution-maturity/ 2008-10-28T00:00:00+00:00 2008-10-28T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Design, or Technical, Debt is receiving growing acceptance in the development community as a useful and practical metaphor. This article shows how it can be used as a measure of solution maturity at the enterprise level in corporate environments.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/fp-pt2/ 2008-10-12T00:00:00+01:00 2008-10-12T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The second of two parts explaining the main concepts of functional programming: this time through a worked example.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/fp-pt1/ 2008-08-25T00:00:00+01:00 2008-08-25T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The first of a two-part article explaining all the main concepts of functional programming: from lambda functions, to closures, to continuations, to monads.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/the-reuse-fairy/ 2008-08-13T00:00:00+01:00 2008-08-13T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

This is the story of the software reuse fairy. She comes and goes, seducing some, and annoying others. She is real, but there are good reasons not to believe.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/third-way/ 2008-08-04T00:00:00+01:00 2008-08-04T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

There's still too much fervour around open source vs commercial software. One isn't better than the other, and both are here to stay. Harmony lies not with the communities, but with the users and IT leaders who need to accept their responsibilities to make both prosper.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/change-antipattern/ 2008-07-09T00:00:00+01:00 2008-07-09T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Everybody's talking about change: Change Programmes, Embracing Change, Championing Change. Here are ten reasons you might want to avoid change and just improve instead.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/pragmatic-strategy/ 2008-07-05T00:00:00+01:00 2008-07-05T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Strategy has a bad name with some, being seen as the preserve of talking shops and consultants. But a good strategy, well-applied, can be the making of a company. It's not possible to say what the right strategy is for all businesses, but there are some good rules for applying it. This article looks at why the most pragmatic people are often the best creators of strategy and how it's as much about bottom-up thinking as it is about future vision.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/abc-esb/ 2008-06-24T00:00:00+01:00 2008-06-24T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

IT people must be some of the cleverest and expensive in the world. Or at least that the theory. And yet we are constantly falling for the emperors new clothes in the form of next-big-things whilst discarding what we have, even the bits of what we have that work. The answer lies in understanding the history of how we got to where we got to and, unfortunately, accepting that some things are hard work and we have to do it.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/magnificence-mundane/ 2008-06-14T00:00:00+01:00 2008-06-14T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Relationships between IT departments and business customers are not unlike real world friendships. If you can see what works with your friends you can apply it in business. And it's mostly about conversations. If you can talk, you have a good chance of resolving anything. As professionals in a complex subject area it's always tempting to look for sophisticated answers to problems, but by focusing on the common sense basics of how we structure ourselves and how we act we can deliver better software. When we do that we cease to be something distinct from the business and we can stop talking about business/IT alignment and get on with doing what we do best.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/the-interview-pt1/ 2008-06-05T00:00:00+01:00 2008-06-05T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Interviewing is a vastly underrated skill, and yet if you can do it well it brings you the best of all rewards - good people to work with. This is part one of a two-part article looking at effective candidate filtering, interviewing techniques and questions that work for technology roles.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/change-steps/ 2008-05-16T00:00:00+01:00 2008-05-16T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The last of three articles about change programmes. This one assumes that you have got to the point where you have to have one (the two previous articles explained why generally they are not a good idea). If issues have been left to fester for too long though sometimes you have no choice. This article proposes a way to run a change programme that is effective with the minimum amount of paperwork and fuss. A change programme that makes changes. What a novel idea that is.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/scalability/ 2008-04-28T00:00:00+01:00 2008-04-28T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/agile-fallacies/ 2008-04-26T00:00:00+01:00 2008-04-26T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The Agile approach is great when applied appropriately, but the concept is nothing new. In fact it goes so far back it shares its roots with the waterfall method. But Agile got a cool name in 2001 (before that it was just working closely with the customer in an iterative fashion, which wasn't anywhere near as catchy) and was jumped upon by consultants and cowboy coders. This article looks at just some of the common fallacies that have grown up around this peculiar buzzword.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/scooby-doo/ 2008-03-21T00:00:00+00:00 2008-03-21T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

How change programmes usually go once the consultants turn up. These are the warning signs to look out for. All found by deep reading the masterful and authoritative canon that is the work of Scooby Doo.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/retep-principle/ 2008-03-11T00:00:00+00:00 2008-03-11T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/foundations/ 2008-02-12T00:00:00+00:00 2023-02-21T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Packaging up delivery work for the annual plan is tricky. You don't want huge programmes that spend a fortune and lose their way, but equally too many small projects will likely dupllicate work and create a communication nightmare. What you need is a mix of business-outcome driven initiatives supported by a small number of carefully scoped foundational projects. Here's how.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/analysis-business/ 2008-01-30T00:00:00+00:00 2008-01-30T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A look at business requirements from a functional and non-functional perspective, concluding that partitioning requirements up into arbitrary categories isn't very helpful as it reinforces the subjective politics we need to get away from.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/nature-of-functionality/ 2008-01-16T00:00:00+00:00 2008-01-16T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A look at the potential subjectivity of business requirements and how to spot it.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/shortest-path/ 2008-01-15T00:00:00+00:00 2015-05-23T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A visually interactive exploration of Dijkstra's Shortest Path Algorithm.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/measuring-architecture/ 2008-01-03T00:00:00+00:00 2008-01-03T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A short walk around the discipline of enterprise architecture. What it is, why it's good, and how you know if it's working.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/transformation-trouble/ 2007-12-11T00:00:00+00:00 2007-12-11T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

IT and Business transformations and change programs are very fashionable. But most often, you don't need one. You just need to sort your problems out via better leadership.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/vision/ 2007-11-29T00:00:00+00:00 2007-11-29T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

The second of a two-part piece on reality and vision. This article puts the case that it's all very well thinking about the right now, but without a vision it means nothing.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/governance-apparition/ 2007-11-26T00:00:00+00:00 2007-11-26T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

Financial governance? Project governance? Architecture governance? Service governance? All just distractions that prevent us from seeing that we just need a reasonable process.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/death-of-architecture/ 2007-11-16T00:00:00+00:00 2007-11-16T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

The first of a two-parter that looks at enterprise architecture and reality. One thing to get straight, to make architecture effective, is to realise that it is, in and of itself, a mirage. It's just an idea with no value until it's made real.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/loose-coupling/ 2007-10-18T00:00:00+01:00 2007-10-18T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Sometimes (or maybe all the time) you've got to make architecture count quickly. There's no time, or buy-in, to any longer term visionary fluff. In these cases refactoring is your friend.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/anger-management-design-debt/ 2007-10-08T00:00:00+01:00 2007-10-08T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The concept of design, or technical, debt is fairly well covered around the web. This article looks at how all that debt being created on projects might be wrapped up and managed from an enterprise perspective.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/build-buy/ 2007-10-03T00:00:00+01:00 2007-10-03T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A short article on why thinking in simplistic terms like buy or build your software is dangerous. There are some good rules that should determine which is right for which situation. Both are necessary, but buying when you really should be building can be a major mistake.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/the-requirements-delusion/ 2007-09-29T00:00:00+01:00 2007-09-29T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Successful IT requires that you educate your business into getting the best from its technology capability by exploring the possibilities, not blindly trying to meet their requirements.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/decoder-game/ 2007-09-27T00:00:00+01:00 2023-02-12T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A basic game that encrypts a random piece of text using a substitution cypher and lets you use frequency analysis to decode it.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/soa-myths/ 2007-09-20T00:00:00+01:00 2007-09-20T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

SOA can be dangerous if it's seen (or sold) as a panacea. Like any IT design approach it's hard to get right. Put all your success eggs in your SOA basket at your peril.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/business-alignment-fallacy/ 2007-09-19T00:00:00+01:00 2007-09-19T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Business alignment is a hot topic in IT. Here I put forward the idea that attempting to align IT and the business is a fruitless exercise, because alignment is a fallacious concept. Everyone in the organisation is the business. IT is therefore already aligned. What's needed is talk about possible capabilities, not talk of alignment.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/fractal-amplification-part-one/ 2007-08-31T00:00:00+01:00 2007-08-31T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Good coding, and ultimately good architecture, is about a very very very simple concept - putting the right thing in the right place.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/teamwork/ 2007-08-15T00:00:00+01:00 2007-08-15T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

It's easy to confuse teamwork and success. They aren't always the same. Sometimes to be successful you have to suspend your own needs to work towards a greater good, which in the end is better for everybody.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/kill-your-children/ 2007-08-14T00:00:00+01:00 2007-08-14T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Selling new ideas, especially ones with a technology basis, can be difficult. People get bored so quickly with technology presentations, and yet they will sit through a two-hour film without any difficulty. It's all about narratology.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/managing-people/ 2007-08-07T00:00:00+01:00 2007-08-07T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

We all have to face that stay-technical or manage decision at some point in our IT careers. But why not both? Are not the best managers those that retain a feel for what IT is all about?

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/nfrs/ 2007-08-01T00:00:00+01:00 2007-08-01T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/hold-on-a-tick/ 2007-07-18T00:00:00+01:00 2007-07-18T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

People like their systems to be fast. It's because we hate to wait. In software sometimes there are delays, but they don't have to be annoying.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/megaprojects/ 2007-07-04T00:00:00+01:00 2007-07-04T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Don't get seduced. When it comes to projects, big is most certainly not better. It's a recipe for disaster.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/interface-catalogue/ 2007-07-01T00:00:00+01:00 2007-07-01T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A template for capturing interfaces between applications on a project. Quite simple, but very effective for planning and communication.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/amdahls-law/ 2007-06-28T00:00:00+01:00 2023-02-20T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A simple calculator to explore the implications of Amdahl's Law on business processes.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/space-based-archetypes/ 2007-06-27T00:00:00+01:00 2007-06-27T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The third of three articles on the space-based architecture. This one looks at how the patterns of SBA deployment naturally lend themselves to supporting systemic requirements.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/space-based-agility/ 2007-06-25T00:00:00+01:00 2007-06-25T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The second of three articles on spaced-based architecture. This one explains why using SBA can make you more agile.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/space-based-architecture-example/ 2007-06-06T00:00:00+01:00 2007-06-06T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

The first of three articles on the space-based architecture. This one describes what the SBA approach is all about.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/the-little-language/ 2007-05-28T00:00:00+01:00 2007-05-28T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A short word about domain specific languages and why they might hold much promise for software development, business relations, and effective reuse.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/doing-it-right-doing-it-wrong/ 2007-05-23T00:00:00+01:00 2007-05-23T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

It's really easy to get so hung up on principles like DRY, YAGNI, KISS, etc that we can't even write a line of code for fear that it might be picked apart by the purists. Relax. Sometimes you should write poorly structured code to see where your going, as long as you track it and can fix it later.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/lispians/ 2007-05-01T00:00:00+01:00 2007-05-01T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A quick look at Lisp to see if there's any truth to the intellectual hype.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/idiom-idiot/ 2007-04-21T00:00:00+01:00 2007-04-21T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Finding an agile architecture requires thinking and acting like your business, not clinging to the supposed tenets of best practice.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/outsourcing-we-will-go/ 2007-04-14T00:00:00+01:00 2007-04-14T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Creating great software is difficult. But it's the realisation of everything marketing and branding talk about, so never, ever, ever, give it to someone else to do.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/methodologies-suck/ 2007-04-12T00:00:00+01:00 2007-04-12T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Formally structuring what you do is great, because it helps anyone somewhat removed from the project quickly understand where you are. It also helps establish some sense of repeatability and an opportunity to continuously improve. But don't get caught up in the methodology madness.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/engineer/ 2007-04-10T00:00:00+01:00 2007-04-10T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

Turns out that the term software engineer, was never really meant to be adopted by coders. It was used as a challenge to developers at a NATO conference in 1968 to be more structured and methodical.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/narratology/ 2007-04-05T00:00:00+01:00 2007-04-05T00:00:00+01:00 Julian Browne

A brief introduction to the concepts of narratology, and why they can help you do better presentations.

https://www.julianbrowne.com/article/seeing-the-spoon/ 2007-04-01T00:00:00+01:00 2008-01-01T00:00:00+00:00 Julian Browne

A kick-off article for the site in general, or why I decided to get a few things of my chest