Beyond the Hype

In this episode, Colin Eberhardt is joined for a discussion about Web3 by his colleague Oliver Cronk, and guests Johanna Eiramo from the Finnish National Gallery, and Lilly Pencheva, a Blockchain & Web3 Specialist. As it’s quite a challenging and volatile topic, we should state that the opinions raised in this podcast are personal views rather than the views of any current or former employer. In the discussion, they ask the question “What is Web3?” and explore what it means to be a decentralised technology. They discuss the metaverse, Roblox and other virtual environments, and very briefly touch on Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). But for the most part, they talk about exploration and innovation. They begin the discussion with Johanna talking about bringing digital artwork into the virtual world of the metaverse, and the Finnish National Gallery’s motivation for experimenting with technology. Links from the podcast: Our (museum) eyes are focused on the future The Finnish Metagallery Decentraland What is Web3 and why is it important? The Ethereum Merge Can Web3 beat public cloud?

In this episode, Simon Martin, Chris Price and Rob Pilling share their interest and insights into Rust. This relatively new programming language has caught the attention of the development community, being voted the ‘most-loved’ language seven years in a row in the StackOverflow survey. They discuss a wide range of topics, including what it means to be a system-programming language, and what brought each of them to Rust. They ponder what it is that makes a programming language successful and, given this, consider what the future might hold for Rust. We pick up the conversation where Chris is trying to describe the nature of Rust through a bicycle metaphor. Yes, really… and we find out later in the podcast that this metaphor works surprisingly well. Links from the podcast: Nerd Sniping - xkcd webcomic StackOverflow 2022 Survey - most-loved language WebAssembly Asynchronous Programming in Rust

In this month’s episode, we tackle a wide range of topics relating to the role of technology innovation, and the perils of hyped technology, within Digital Government. Colin is joined by colleagues Jess McEvoy and Alex Segrove, who have both spent many years working in technology roles in the UK Government. They discuss how citizen-facing services have some challenging technology constraints simply because they must be usable by everyone.  We also touch on the fascinating dynamic that exists between the government and technology vendors and partners. These suppliers have a lot of expertise and IP to offer that can solve some of the gnarly problems that exist on government-scale systems. However, care must be taken to avoid outsourcing your entire technology strategy. It is vital that the government remains an intelligent buyer. Finally, we consider the sheer scale of government spending, £3.7 billion per annum, and the positive impact this has through stimulating innovation and creating opportunities. This investment has contributed to the UK Government’s success in claiming the number 2 spot in the OECD Digital Government Index. Links from the podcast: G-Cloud & DOS Spending Review to December 2021 – Advice Cloud GOV.UK – The best place to find government services and information  UK claims number 2 spot in OECD digital government rankings – Jess McEvoy

In this month’s episode we talk about Behaviour Driven Development (BDD), a testing practice where system behaviours are captured in a human readable Domain Specific Language (DSL), which are automated and executed. Colin is joined by colleagues Daniel McNamee, Xin Chen and Jack Arnstein who bring their many years of testing experience to a lively debate on this topic. They discuss the essence of BDD: is it the DSL, the automation frameworks, or is it more simply the conversations that take place as part of writing these scenarios/feature files? There are also limitations to BDD, so they discuss when it provides value, and when it might not. And they consider the question ‘just how expensive is it as an approach?’. Finally, they wrap up by considering whether BDD is simply misunderstood. Links from the podcast: Introducing BDD – Dan North The Tragedy of Given-When-Then – Chris Matts The Three Amigos The Value at the Intersection of TDD, DDD, and BDD – Darshan Satya

In this month’s episode, we talk multi-cloud. This is a challenging topic, even the first step—nailing down what the term actually means—isn’t easy. How does it differ from hybrid-cloud or poly-cloud? Does the term refer to the deployment approach for a single application or an entire organisation? We discuss the challenges of creating a multi-cloud architecture, dealing with multiple cloud vendors, and why you might follow this path. Colin is joined by colleagues James Heward and Robert Griffiths to compare thoughts and experiences gained from many years of architecting solutions for the cloud. Links from the podcast: Flexera 2022 State of the Cloud Report – Brian Adler Decoder: Polycloud – Thoughtworks White Paper: Thinking differently - the cloud as a value driver – Scott Logic

A relatively new architectural style for building web-based applications, micro-frontends are an extension of the popular microservices pattern where the vertical slice of functionality that a microservice provides is extended all the way to the front-end. With micro-frontends, you can more easily scale your development teams by composing applications from loosely coupled frontend components. In this month’s episode, Colin is joined by Dean Kerr (Lead Developer, Scott Logic) and Sam Hogarth (Senior Software Engineer, Tesco Bank) to compare thoughts and experiences gained from many years of front-end development. Links from the podcast: Micro Frontends - Spotify Approach Iframes - Mostafa Biomee Microservice Websites - Gustaf Nilsson Kotte Webpack Module Federation Sites vs. Apps defined: the Documents-to-Applications Continuum - Aral Balkan You probably don't need a micro-frontend - Colin Eberhardt, Dean Kerr, Sam Hograth, Robat Williams, Chris Price, Chris Kurzeja

Microservices have become the standard architectural pattern for everything. It’s a great and versatile pattern, but what people rarely talk about is the cost. You didn’t think you got all that good stuff (polyglot, scalable, decoupled...) for free, did you? In this episode, we talk about the real-world impact of choosing this pattern and when it might not be the right choice.   In this month’s episode, Colin is joined by Ian Sugar (Technical Principal, Scott Logic) and Harry Bellamy (Lead Developer, Scott Logic) to compare thoughts and experiences gained from years of working with microservices and their architectural antecedents. Links from the podcast: • Microservices for Life - Ian Sugar • Code reuse in microservices architecture - with Spring Boot - Bartosz Jedrzejewski • Designing Microservice architectures the right way - Michael Bryzek • When To Use Microservices (And When Not To!) - Sam Newman & Martin Fowler

Beyond the Hype is a brand new monthly podcast from the Scott Logic team, where we cast a practical eye over what is new and exciting in technology – everything from Kafka to Kubernetes, AI to APIs, microservices to micro-frontends. We look beyond the promises, the buzz and excitement to guide you towards the genuine value. We’re an independent consultancy at Scott Logic, so there’ll be no sales pitches or marketing speak – just impartial insights and a frank and open discussion. So, to get a clear-eyed view of the technology landscape, search for Beyond the Hype on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.