The Lost Art of Software Design by Simon Brown 🚀
Explore key insights on software design from Simon Brown's YOW! 2019 talk, emphasizing architecture and best practices.

GOTO Conferences
30.4K views • Jan 3, 2023

About this video
This presentation was recorded at YOW! 2019. #GOTOcon #YOW
https://yowcon.com
Simon Brown - Author of "Software Architecture for Developers" & Creator of the C4 Software @simonbrown4821
ABSTRACT
"Big design up front is dumb. Doing no design up front is even dumber." This quote epitomises what I've seen during our journey from "big design up front" in the 20th century, to "emergent design" and "evolutionary architecture" in the 21st. In their desire to become "agile", many teams seem to have abandoned architectural thinking, up front design, documentation, diagramming, and modelling.
In many cases this is a knee-jerk reaction to the heavy bloated processes of times past, and in others it's a misinterpretation and misapplication of the agile manifesto. As a result, many of the software design activities I witness these days are very high-level and superficial in nature. The resulting output, typically an ad hoc sketch on a whiteboard, is usually ambiguous and open to interpretation, leading to a situation where the underlying solution can't be assessed or reviewed.
If you're willing to consider that up front design is about creating a sufficient starting point, rather than creating a perfect end-state, you soon realise that a large amount of the costly rework and "refactoring" seen on many software development teams can be avoided. Join me for a discussion of the lost art of software design, and how we can reintroduce it. [...]
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Simon Brown • Software Architecture for Developers Vol. 2 • https://leanpub.com/visualising-software-architecture
David Farley • Modern Software Engineering • https://amzn.to/3GI468M
Dave Farley & Jez Humble • Continuous Delivery • https://amzn.to/3ocIHwd
Woods, Erder & Pureur • Continuous Architecture in Practice • https://amzn.to/2QWAmkl
George Fairbanks • Just Enough Software Architecture • https://amzn.to/3uZzVo0
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#SoftwareArchitecture #DevOps #SimonBrown #Microservices #Monolith #ModularMonolith #Complexity #BoundedContext #C4Model #SoftwareEngineering #Programming #SoftwareDevelopment #UML #DRY #Structurizr #YOWcon
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https://yowcon.com
Simon Brown - Author of "Software Architecture for Developers" & Creator of the C4 Software @simonbrown4821
ABSTRACT
"Big design up front is dumb. Doing no design up front is even dumber." This quote epitomises what I've seen during our journey from "big design up front" in the 20th century, to "emergent design" and "evolutionary architecture" in the 21st. In their desire to become "agile", many teams seem to have abandoned architectural thinking, up front design, documentation, diagramming, and modelling.
In many cases this is a knee-jerk reaction to the heavy bloated processes of times past, and in others it's a misinterpretation and misapplication of the agile manifesto. As a result, many of the software design activities I witness these days are very high-level and superficial in nature. The resulting output, typically an ad hoc sketch on a whiteboard, is usually ambiguous and open to interpretation, leading to a situation where the underlying solution can't be assessed or reviewed.
If you're willing to consider that up front design is about creating a sufficient starting point, rather than creating a perfect end-state, you soon realise that a large amount of the costly rework and "refactoring" seen on many software development teams can be avoided. Join me for a discussion of the lost art of software design, and how we can reintroduce it. [...]
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Simon Brown • Software Architecture for Developers Vol. 2 • https://leanpub.com/visualising-software-architecture
David Farley • Modern Software Engineering • https://amzn.to/3GI468M
Dave Farley & Jez Humble • Continuous Delivery • https://amzn.to/3ocIHwd
Woods, Erder & Pureur • Continuous Architecture in Practice • https://amzn.to/2QWAmkl
George Fairbanks • Just Enough Software Architecture • https://amzn.to/3uZzVo0
https://twitter.com/GOTOcon
https://www.linkedin.com/company/goto-
https://www.facebook.com/GOTOConferences
#SoftwareArchitecture #DevOps #SimonBrown #Microservices #Monolith #ModularMonolith #Complexity #BoundedContext #C4Model #SoftwareEngineering #Programming #SoftwareDevelopment #UML #DRY #Structurizr #YOWcon
Looking for a unique learning experience?
Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket at https://gotopia.tech
Sign up for updates and specials at https://gotopia.tech/newsletter
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL - new videos posted almost daily.
https://www.youtube.com/user/GotoConferences/?sub_confirmation=1
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Video Information
Views
30.4K
Likes
652
Duration
46:16
Published
Jan 3, 2023
User Reviews
4.6
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