The Pragmatic Engineer

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Software architecture with Grady Booch

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Dec 4, 2024

Guest

Grady Booch

Grady Booch, Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM, discusses his pioneering role in software development, including his creation of UML and insights into the evolving architecture landscape. He reflects on his decision to decline the Chief Architect position at Microsoft and shares pivotal moments in software history. Grady also dives into the challenges of legacy systems, the rise of large language models, and offers invaluable advice for budding software engineers navigating today's tech environment.

01:30:43

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ANECDOTE

Grady Booch's Background

Grady Booch built his first computer at age 12 and has worked in software engineering for decades.
He's known for object-oriented design and co-authoring UML, holding prestigious titles like IBM Fellow.

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INSIGHT

Legacy Code

All code becomes legacy the moment it's written, until discarded.
Useful code lives on, accumulating technical debt, unless intentionally removed.

question_answer

ANECDOTE

IRS Legacy System

The IRS still uses code from the 1960s, written in IBM 360 assembly language, running on emulators.
This illustrates the challenge of modernizing legacy systems while preserving embedded business rules.

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Understanding Legacy Systems in Software Architecture

01:56 • 5min

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Exploring Software Architecture Across Diverse Domains

07:04 • 4min

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The Evolution of Software Architecture

11:06 • 24min

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Navigating Troubles and Evolution of UML in Software Development

34:44 • 3min

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Navigating Software Evolution in a Digital Era

38:09 • 15min

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Evolving Software Architecture Roles

52:54 • 24min

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Navigating the Future of AI and Language Models

01:17:00 • 14min

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Software architecture

Perspectives on an Emerging Discipline

David Garlan

Mary Shaw

This book provides a comprehensive overview of software architecture, discussing its importance, design principles, and the methodologies involved. It is one of the first books to address software architecture as a distinct discipline and offers insights into the challenges and opportunities in this field.

The Rust Programming Language

Carol Nichols

Steve Klabnik

This book is the official guide to Rust, an open-source systems programming language. It covers everything from the basics of creating functions, choosing data types, and binding variables to advanced concepts such as ownership, borrowing, lifetimes, error handling, and fearless concurrency. The book includes concept chapters and project chapters, where readers apply what they have learned by building small programs, including a number-guessing game, a Rust implementation of a command line tool, and a multithreaded server. It emphasizes Rust’s ability to provide low-level control without the traditional risks of crashes or security holes, making it suitable for a wide range of programming tasks, from CLI apps to web servers.

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Welcome to The Pragmatic Engineer! Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by Grady Booch, a true legend in software development. Grady is the Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM, where he leads groundbreaking research in embodied cognition.

He’s the mind behind several object-oriented design concepts, a co-author of the Unified Modeling Language, and a founding member of the Agile Alliance and the Hillside Group.

Grady has authored six books, hundreds of articles, and holds prestigious titles as an IBM, ACM, and IEEE Fellow, as well as a recipient of the Lovelace Medal (an award for those with outstanding contributions to the advancement of computing). In this episode, we discuss:

• What it means to be an IBM Fellow

• The evolution of the field of software development

• How UML was created, what its goals were, and why Grady disagrees with the direction of later versions of UML

• Pivotal moments in software development history

• How the software architect role changed over the last 50 years

• Why Grady declined to be the Chief Architect of Microsoft – saying no to Bill Gates!

• Grady’s take on large language models (LLMs)

• Advice to less experienced software engineers

• … and much more!

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Timestamps

(00:00) Intro