In this episode, SE Radio founding editor Marcus Völter speaks with Grady Booch. We started off by discussing his Architecture Handbook, how it came into being, the progress, and how it will look like once it’s finished. In this context we also looked at the issue of how to distinguish architecture from design. We then asked him about how “professional” software architecture is these days, as well as about the ubiquity of software product lines in industry. The next couple of minutes looked at the question of whether software development is an engineering discipline, craftsmanship, or an art form, and we discussed the key qualifications of software developers. Grady then elaborated on the problems of developing in large teams as well as the potential limits of complexity we can tackle with software.
We then got back to a more technical discussion, where we looked at model-driven development, DSLs, etc. and the role of the UML in that context. Next was a discussion about scripting languages, and the current trend towards new languages. We then looked at component marketplaces and other forms of reuse, as well as the importance of OO these days and the relevance of AO. We concluded with a (small) outlook to the future.
Show Notes
Related Links
- Book: Design Patterns, by the Gang of Four
- Some of the books by Henry Petroski
- Info on CelsiusTech’s Ship System 2000 product line
- Info on the Turing Lecture; here are Grady’s slides
- Book: Distributed Work, by by Pamela J. Hinds and Sara Kiesler (eds)
- Book: Organizational Patterns by Jim Coplien and Neil Harrisson
- Book: The Sciences of the Artificial, Herbert Simon
- Info on the LabView toolkit from National Instruments
- The approach used by Nokia for mobile phone software development
- Grady’s Blog
- SEI Software Architecture site
- A paper describing the approach to software development by Intentional Software, Charles Simonyi
