Mark Richards and Neal Ford, the authors of Fundamentals of Software Architecture and Software Architecture The Hard Parts, are hosting Foundations Fridays Forum, a free 60 minute question and answer session held on the first Friday of the each month. You come with questions related to architecture and topics covered in our books, and we’ll provide the answers. This is a great opportunity to talk with the authors, have great discussions, and get your questions answered. Seating is limited to 100 participants, so register early and sign in early to ensure a seat.
Upcoming Forums
Friday, September 1st, 2023, 11am - 12pm EDT
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Friday, October 6th, 2023, 11am - 12pm EDT
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Sorry everyone—Neal and I are both traveling
(This event is canceled for November)
Friday, December 1st, 2023, 11am - 12pm EST
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Prior Forum Questions
To give you an idea of the discussions we have during the forum, here is a list of some of the past questions we have addressed:
If you don't have Enterprise Architect / Architect positions in org but sometimes see people playing that role, what's the best way to promote such activities?
What would you say the difference is between Async Notification vs Choreographed Sagas?
What are the competencies and skills that you need to develop as an enterprise architect? Is it different from being a solution / software architect?
Should ADRs be managed at the Enterprise level or should it managed and owned by the team that manages a specific solution?
Is there any technique like LCOM to measure cohesion at services level ? (in a microservices architecture)
How can I do marketing for software architecture, how to convince clients that architecture is important?
It's often difficult to tease out the business goals from Product Managers - do you have any tips on how to interview them without giving them too many ideas that end up in an unmanageable number of key architectural characteristics?
In your Fundamentals book, you mentioned that using service based architecture inter process communication should be avoided, what is the recommended way of communication to adhere and respect bounded context?
I feel that Architects are supposed to inspire and be positive drivers... but what do you do to project that spin during those times when things are going badly?
In your experiences, is it more fun being an in-house software architect or an independent consultant?
How different is a Software Architect from a Solution Architect? What defines the boundaries?
What tips do you have for getting up to speed on a new problem domain - e.g. you come in as a contractor and need to design an architecture for an entirely new problem domain?
How to manage microservices that build state stores based on Kafka Streams, which in turn need to get populated before another microservices can start processing?
What about low-code / no-code in software architecture. Can one still be effective, nimble, and still achieve architecture principles?
In first book you mentioned Entity trap and CRUD based system. What ever I do my architecture gravitate to CRUD based system. How to get out of it?
When do you need an Enterprise Architecture practice (not necessarily a named EA architect or team, but perhaps more of a distributed model) in a startup.
Based on your experience, in case of choosing a microkernel architecture, what are the most common technologies for the implementation?
How to approach the resilience of a system from architecture point of view? what patterns and techniques to apply?
Would you please share your experience and effective techniques introducing and helping implement the idea of Fitness Functions.
How do you collect architecturally significant requirements when you are assigned to a new project? Every stakeholder has different requirements, how do you prioritize these?
How to approach the black swans events of IT world?
What do you think of TOGAF?
Please explain the reasons to move from microservices to monolithic architecture.
How can we handle mutiple API version in our backend code?
In the topic of accessibility, what do you think is the futuer of the UX field? How will it grow, what direction?
What do you think about Web3 Architecture?
Any tips on how to to find the right set of trade-offs at the very early stages of a project?
How do you make sure as an architect that the implementation does not diverge from the design?
What strategies and techniques can be used to address architectural concerns like Modularity, Resuability, and flexibility?