Vishal Biyani

19 Dec 2010

Software Design & Architecture in the 21st Century with Martin Fowler

Attended a small event organized by ThoughtWorks O hotel in Pune, which works in areas of software development using Agile, lean, Extreme programming techniques. The organization was founded and is headed by Roy Singham and has Martin Fowler as Chief Scientist among leaders of the organization. The organization aims at “revolutionizing” IT.

There were two lectures primarily one by Vivek Singh on introduction to the company and on Role Of Architect and Martin Fowler focusing his lecture on Continuous integration delivery. Martin also took through a small presentation on type of software projects, broadly classifying them into

  • Strategic software projects: which drive innovation and need to be executed at highest possible speed so that the competitive advantage reached market before competitors. The cost is not generally a consideration in these kind of projects. These kind of projects are generally executed to implement a important strategy of a business function.

  • Utility software projects: which primarily aim at reducing cost of operation of an organization. They may not contribute to innovation POV, but are at the same time important part of the organization. Simplest example would be automation of payroll system of organization in utility kind of projects.

Martin asserted that the team organization, software development methodology used and other factors vary greatly between above classified kind of projects and is a important factor in driving success of a software project. Martin also spoke about Domain specific languages, with couple of good examples and based on his book with same name.

Followed by questions from lean/Agile enthusiast and high tea, the event was definite knowledge packed.