More on-line lectures on software architecture

I was discussing with one of my colleagues at the department if there were any introductory or summary presentations on-line about software architecture. I have already listed some on-line lectures about software archtiecture in the blog, but a quick search revelad some interesting ones:

• An Introduction to Software Architecture and the Risk-Centric Model by George Fairbanks. George is a an excellent lecturer and has written one of the best books available on software architecture. If you have the oportunity to discuss with him, take it. Too bad the sound is so bad in this video clip.
• Conscious Software Development: Architecture with Jeff Mckenna. Why not look through all parts in the series while you are at it?
• Software Architecture Document by Philippe Back. I don't know who this guy is, but he manages to convey a lot of essentials in 12 minutes
• SEI has a number of webinars related to software architecture. Unfortunately I can't get them to play on my computer, maybe you can?
• Out and About: Software Architecture with Simon Brown. A short clip with a view on what a developer needs to do to be an architect.
• Considering a Software Architect Career by Marc Ferrentino. A very short clip on what skills you need if becoming an architect.

MeeGo is out, what is in?

There has been some turmoil in the world of infotainment platforms. Intel has left Meego and have partnered with Samsung in Tizen. This just a few months after Meego 1.2 vas deemed GENIVI compliant. I have no idea if Tizen aims to be GENIVI compliant as well. But there are already some commercial platforms that are GENIVI compliant.

I have been involved in the Open Infotainment Labs, a project patially funded by VINNOVA aiming att evaluating radically different work methods compared to standard practice at most car manufacturers. We integrated the system in a car this week, 16 weeks after start of development.

AUTOSAR as open source

This might be the coolest thing I have seen so far: There exist an open source distributions of AUTOSAR!
And it's local to us here in Gothenburg, should I be embarassed for not hearing about this earlier?

Caveat: Note that if you intend to use AUTOSAR in a business setting you need to fulfill the conditions according to the AUTOSAR consortium.
After some e-mail exchange I now know that the open source AUTOSAR BSW software (ver 3.1) is available under a GPLv2-license.

Set-based architecture

I listened to a presentation from Durward K. Sobek II about set-based concurrent engineering, which is a development paradigm(?) from lean development (more precisely from Toyota Product Development System).

The original principle, as I understand it, is that a designer should work with a set of design proposals towards manufacturing and in the dialogue between what is desirable (form engineering) to what is possible (from manufacturing) iteratively narrow it down to a single design. He concluded the presentation with how one would start with this in the small and the advice was to present two designs instead of a single one the next time

It made me thinking about how an architecture is “presented” to the stakeholders, especially the developers. would it be possible to present two architecture proposals to developers and let them identify the constraints from their perspective in narrowing it down to a single, agreed, architecture.

Choke on cinnamon buns?

I wrote in a previous blog post about that I get upset about bad programming. I stumbled upon a prime example of bad programming from the excellent website Jävla skitsystem on that it was not possible to buy 20 identical cinnamon buns at 7-eleven at the same time because it crashes the cashier system and it would take 15 minutes to reboot.

I don't know what is most stupid? That there is an actual limit on the amount of goods you can buy, that the system crashes without recovery if you pass this limit or the fact that it takes 15 minutes (!) to reboot. First I cannot understand that the programmer was so narrow-minded he/she could not imagine these situations. Second I don't understand that the company delivering the system did not catch this in their testing. What kind of procedures do they have? And this system handles money...

First International Software Technology Exchange Workshop

Swedsoft arranges a workshop in Stockholm on Wednesday 23 Novemeber. It is dedicated to transfer academic results to industry. Sounds really interesting.

First International Software Technology Exchange Workshop 2011

The angry programmer?

My wife thinks I should start another blog named "Ulriks programming nightmares". Or maybe just add another topic of this blog where I mention examples of programmed systems that aren't good. Or to be more precise, where the programmer was too lazy to do a good job, which really gets me going. Unfortunately I get upset when I see it among the students which is a bit harsh, they are here to learn after all.
The examples I have seen so far is everything from the logic of the elevators at the university to how the booking system of SJ places people at a train. Seriously, if there are 3 reserved seats in a wagon, why must two of them be next to each other?
Enough ranting, but is this a good idea to expand the topic of the blog with? Coming to think of it, there must already be sites like that out there. If not there should be, it is always more educational to learn from bad examples than good.