Permanent Strangulation

When discussing how to transition to new systems or environments, one of my favorite approaches is the strangler pattern because it allows for a low risk approach to transition to the new environment in a piecemeal fashion. There is a hidden risk with this approach, and it is the price tag is increased tech debt adding complexity and maintenance costs. …

The Kubernetes Test for Modernization

Coming of age as a programmer around the .com boom of the late 90s and early 2000s, there was one blogger that had a big influence on the developer me, and that was Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek Software. One of his posts went viral and became the cornerstone of what true software development was supposed to be like, called …

Tis the Season to Freeze Changes

There is something to be said for the official start of the holiday season: the feasts, the family and friends, and gifts. Especially in the IT space, there may appear to be a lull, especially if your organization has code freezes in place. For anyone in the IT or engineering part of the org chart, it is anything but quiet. …

Software Is Change

Today I’m going to touch on something that is near and dear to my heart as an engineer, and that is breaking changes at scale. Granted there are industries and armies of consultants dedicated to the concept of change management ranging from ITIL to Agile/Scum. At the core, the focus is on documenting the change request and resulting change. My …