This Dot Labs - Demystifying Software Architecture

The gang is back and welcomes a new host - Andrea Corrie! In this episode, we discuss the many flavors of Agile development and our experiences working in Agile teams. The hosts talk about the Agile Manifesto and some of the common criticisms of Agile methodologies like Scrum or Kanban. Finally, the group debates how much rigidity a team should have in their processes and whether deadlines should be as important and common as they are in modern software development.

In this episode, Rob Ocel, Jarrod Overson, & Frederik Prijck discuss what it's like being the leader of small teams and large teams at companies ranging from startups to large enterprise firms.

In this episode, Rob Ocel, Jarrod Overson, Frederik Prijck, & James Spivey talk about testing. 

In this episode, Rob Ocel, Jarrod Overson, & James Spivey talk about mentorship.

In this episode, Rob Ocel, Jarrod Overson, & Frederik Prijck talk about frameworks.   Topics discussed:  - What is the difference between a framework and a library? Should it matter?- What are the tradeoffs for choosing a framework on your project? Should you always use a framework?- What is the best framework? Should we even ask that?- Framework communities! How to make the most of the communities around your tech stack and how to contribute back. 

In this episode, Rob Ocel, James Spivey, Jarrod Overson, & Frederik Prijck talk about debugging and troubleshooting.

In this episode, Rob Ocel, James Spivey, Jarrod Overson, & Frederik Prijck talk about abstractions.

In this episode, Tracy Lee, Rob Ocel, James Spivey, & Jarrod Overson talk about security. Topics Discussed: * Why security matters and why should we care? * Is security only for back-end engineers? * Security and open-source (lessons from the event-stream incident) * Should major companies be afraid of open source software for security reasons? * How to reduce risk of compromised dependencies * Resources about security for beginners * Security, trade-offs, and the limits of our ability to fully protect ourselves * How to handle passwords as developers * Differences between hashing, encrypting, and encoding * Practical steps to begin securing your applications and teams * Fraud teams and security audits

In this episode, Tracy Lee, Rob Ocel, James Spivey, & Jarrod Overson talk about infrastructure. Topics Discussed:* Differences between monolithic and microservice architectures* Considerations on architecture when using GraphQL* Challenges in migrating from a monolith to a microservice/serverless architecture* Hipster - CLI tool for building microservices and integrating with front-end frameworks* Pitfalls when breaking up monoliths* Rise of NoSQL tools and differences from relational databases* How to choose a database on a new project* Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings and benefits* What do beginners need to know about infrastructure?* Running infrastructure at the edge!* Security concerns with IaaS providers

Migrations seem to be happening every day at every company. We cover some of the hot topics in this episode. - What are the reasons to migrate from one technology to another?- How do you plan for a migration (like upgrading a framework to a newer version)?- What is a "minimally viable migration"?- How can you incrementally migrate a large legacy system? Need help with a migration? Email us hi@thisdot.co and we'd love to help!

In this This Dot Labs episode, Rob Ocel, James Spivey, Jarrod Overson, and Tracy Lee speak about web software and systems architecture. How does a focus on architecture solve long-term problems? How do you choose between various types of architecture for a project (i.e. Monolith vs Microservices or GraphQL vs REST)? How do architects stay up to date on new approaches? How does software architecture differ between small and large companies?  

In this episode of This Dot Labs, Rob Ocel, James Spivey, Jarrod Overson, and Tracy Lee speak about web performance. Some of the Topics Covered:- What is performance important?- What do people mean when they talk about web performance. - Is performance only fixing problems?