
The Loosely Coupled Show
The Loosely Coupled Show is where James Hickey and Derek Comartin share their strongly held opinions about topics relating to software architecture and design: HTTP REST design, asynchronous messaging patterns, distributed systems, microservices, SOA, Domain-driven design, etc.
From time-to-time, we chat with industry experts who have specific specializations within the field of software development & design.
Latest episodes

Jun 27, 2020 • 21min
Software Testing
Derek and James chat about how they like to test software (unit, integration, etc) and what different reasons exist to test in the first place.
James Hickey:
https://twitter.com/jamesmh_dev
https://www.jamesmichaelhickey.com/
Derek Comartin:
https://twitter.com/codeopinion
https://codeopinion.com

Jun 26, 2020 • 52min
Interview With Adam Ralph: SOA, Microservices, Service Boundaries
Adam Ralph, software developer and open source advocate, discusses topics such as microservices vs SOA, service boundaries, carving out a monolith, service communication, and the 4+1 architectural view model.

Jun 26, 2020 • 1h 5min
Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOS)
In this episode, James & Derek talk about Hypermedia used in HTTP APIs. More specifically they discuss Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State and how it's useful in what type of systems.
3:55 Workflow & State Transitions
7:35 Hypermedia Clients
16:10 Driving the UI & Visibility
23:25 Opaque URIs
35:30 Tooling
40:20 State Machine
48:22 Downsides
James Hickey
https://twitter.com/jamesmh_dev
https://www.jamesmichaelhickey.com/
Derek Comartin
https://twitter.com/codeopinion
https://codeopinion.com

Jun 26, 2020 • 1h 2min
Interview With Nate Barbettini Part 2: Domain-Driven Design
This is is part 2 of our discussion with Nate where we talk more about Domain-Driven Design.
3:50 DDD in a Startup
8:50 Boundaries & Explicit
16:45 Entity Identification
26:55 API Design
32:05 Cross-Boundary & Consistency
43:30 Database First
James Hickey:
https://twitter.com/jamesmh_dev
https://www.jamesmichaelhickey.com/
Derek Comartin
https://twitter.com/codeopinion
https://codeopinion.com

Jun 26, 2020 • 54min
Remote Work
We chat about topics like:
0:30 Changes in Remote Work
2:30 Fully Remote vs Partially Remote
4:50 Krisp.ai
10:10 Struggles working remote
15:40 Interruptions
22:30 Group Reviews
24:10 Conventions
30:30 Vertical Slices
32:50 Communication & Documentation
38:10 Evolving Architecture & Design
46:30 Talking with the business
Links:
Krisp.ai
https://ref.krisp.ai/u/u40a218a54?utm_source=refprogram&utm_campaign=4584&locale=en-US
James Hickey:
https://twitter.com/jamesmh_dev
https://www.jamesmichaelhickey.com/
Derek Comartin
https://twitter.com/codeopinion
https://codeopinion.com

Jun 26, 2020 • 1h
Interview With Nate Barbettini: OAuth, GraphQL, Event Sourcing
Nate is the co-founder and CTO of Cobbler and a former Microsoft MVP. He previously worked at Okta as a developer advocate and is the author of the Little ASP.NET Core Book.
Links:
OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect (in plain English)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996OiexHze0
http://littleasp.net/book
https://twitter.com/nbarbettini
James Hickey:
https://www.jamesmichaelhickey.com/
https://twitter.com/jamesmh_dev
Derek Comartin:
https://codeopinion.com
https://twitter.com/codeopinion

Jun 26, 2020 • 34min
Interview With Steve Smith: Architecture, SOLID, Domain Driven Design
Steve Smith (@ardalis) is an entrepreneur and software developer with a passion for building quality software as effectively as possible. He provides mentoring and training workshops for teams with the desire to improve. Steve has been recognized as a Microsoft MVP for over 10 consecutive years, and is a frequent speaker at software developer conferences and events. Connect with Steve at ardalis.com.
Links:
https://weeklydevtips.com
https://ardalis.com/new-is-glue
https://deviq.com/explicit-dependencies-principle/
https://twitter.com/ardalis
James Hickey: https://twitter.com/jamesmh_dev
Derek Comartin: https://twitter.com/codeopinion

Jun 26, 2020 • 9min
Introduction
Welcome to the new Loosely Coupled Show by James Hickey and Derek Comartin. We'll be covering topics around software architecture and design with various guests in the software industry.
James Hickey: https://twitter.com/jamesmh_dev
Derek Comartin: https://twitter.com/codeopinion