Santiago Nakakawa | S/W Design and Architecture

War Games War Games is a sci-fi movie from 1983 that narrates the story of David Lightman, a teenager that trying to hack into what he thought was a videogame development company accessed instead into a top secret military base computer and initialized a "game" called Global Thermonuclear War, which ran a simulation of a nuclear war between the USSR and the USA, driving everybody mad as they thought the simulation was a real deal, and giving a head start to a potential World War 3. Even though it is considered a classic, I must admit I had never seen the movie, not even heard about it. I watched it without knowing a thing about the plot, and I enjoyed it more than I expected to be honest. However there are a lot of things that I found a little absurd and highly unlikely to occur in real life. The plot itself, for instance. Just to think that a kid by accident has the ability to enter a military base is something I found too fictional to my taste, even when we are talking...

Software Craftsmanship In his podcast titled "Software Craftsmanship", Bob Martin talks about some tips in tackling agile development throught the use of the craft of good designing. He talks about craftsmanship as a "mentor and disciple" ability, one that must be taught by an experienced developer to those who are just beginning their journey as programmers. He even mentions that one's skills begin only after you graduate and begin to work, and then you'd wish for having a mentor to show you the secrets and hacks for good designing or you'll be forced to self taught yourself and learn from try and error. But the important thing is to keep in mind that you should and must keep learning always at all times different techniques in order to become a master in software design and development. I really enjoyed these 4 hacks he mentions in the podcast that can help you keep up your level and gain skill: He first mentions that one should not only pro...

Is Design Dead? So far, all the articles I've read are in their majority speculations and theories about the importance of good designing and the future of software development techniques and strategies. This one wasn't the exception. One thing that called my attention is how Mr. Fowler talks about extreme programming as a common way of working in the industry, as he explains how different patterns could be use to produce more efficient software and yet is ignored under the premise of quickness. He talks once again about the complexity of reversibility when its main purpose is to make designing and building much easier, and also introduces new terms to me like the evolutionary design. I can relate to his experiences and stories about how we are so used to program thinking constantly in the future use of software and often fall far from the original purpose of the program. It is really difficult to just ignore your inner common sense when supposing you should add extra fe...

Who needs an Architect? On his article "Who Needs An Architect?", Martin Fowler discusses about the importance and definition of a software architect. As he further narrates, being an "architect" in software seems to be a misunderstood profession, as the definition and limits of their functions in software developping are not clearly defined and constantly debated among experts in the field. In the first definition he references, he explains how customers don't really know or care about the architecture of the software, as they are plainly focused on its functionality, therefore an architect is more of a guide for all developers to follow in order for them to understand how the different parts of the puzzle should fit all together. This "shared understanding" (as said in the article) is the architecture and core of the software. This first definition concludes then that a good architecture should have focused information that is simple and d...