Opinions on this course?

[Adam Toseland]

Hi,

I am been planning undertake another training course this year. I took Udi Dahan's 'Advanced Distributed Systems Design using SOA & DDD' in 2010 which I really enjoyed. 

Today I received an email from SSW with details of an upcoming Juval Lowy course Architects Clinic. I work in the Solution Architecture space so I thought it might be beneficial.

Bear in mind I am a contractor  so any course I take is a fairly big financial commitment with fees, loss of wages, accommodation  etc etc 

Has anyone taken any other iDesign/Juval Lowy course before? 

Opinions????

Cheers,

--

Adam Toseland

Senior Consultant

razor it systems

E: adam.t...@razorit.com.au

B: 02 6207 1666

M: 0413638404

[Jimmy P]

I haven't been to the course but I remember the tweet stream from when it ran last year... Sounded... Controversial?

I think it's definatley a different POV from Udi's course anyway

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Cheers,

Jim P

@pjimmy

[Adam Toseland]

That doesn't surprise me that Udi ad Juval dont see eye to eye on a few things considering that Udi doesn't have much love for WCF and Juval preaches it.

[Jimmy P]

If memory serves me correctly another quote was along the lines of "once architecture is done coding is a completley mechanical exercise"

Discuss :)

[Michael Minutillo]

In my experience, until coding is half-way done the requirements of architecture are not clearly or completely known. That said, if you have a good architecture, any new feature should be easy and obvious to design and code so there is merit to the quote.

[Michael Minutillo]

Also, I'd go to Juval's course. He's a respected and intelligent guy with a reasonable following. At the very least you'll learn an alternative point of view. Whether or not you agree you are bound to learn something even if it just solidifies your understanding of your own ideas and practices.

[Jimmy P]

I agree id go to for much the same reasons

[Richard Banks]

Juval believes everything (I mean E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G!) should be a WCF services because WCF is sex on a stick.

 

If you like ivory tower architecture and impractical, convoluted solutions then this will be right up your alley.

If you like your opinions or questions to be met with belligerence, arrogance or snide humour this will also be right up your alley.

 

I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s worth your money or not.

 

P.S. For clarity, I am most definitely NOT a fan.

[Dave Newman]

Nice response!

For the record WCF is the most over architected, unnecessarily complex software I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with. If you find yourself looking at it, do yourself a favour and either use a standard http rest api with a simple rest client library, or for more complex scenarios look at 0mq (https://github.com/zeromq/clrzmq)

Dave

[Richard Banks]

Hold on! You’re not suggesting that web services use the technology of the... wait for it... web! are you? Gosh!

 

You might need to wash your mouth out with some SOAP (I groaned just typing that so I’m sure it will be worse when you read it!)

 

P.S. I agree on your approach.  REST API’s and message queues when required. zeroMq is good, but there’s also RabbitMq and ApacheMq out there as well, and then there’s good ol’ MSMQ which works great on windows LANs.

[CAD bloke]

If you're a coder then Juval Lowy says you're a monkey. Yes, he really says that. Udi Dahan is a lot more coder-friendly. Also, whose code do people actually use? Mmmmmmhmmmm.
WCF is the Keith Richards of frameworks. I can't believe it outlasted so many other more promising brethren.

Save your time and money for a codecamp, Tekpub, Pluralsight etc or spend it on 1:1 consulting with the genius of your choice learning exactly what you want/need to know.

Ewen

[Stephen Price]

I'm a little confused... So do you like him, or not? 

Tell us what you really think... ;)

[Nick Josevski]

I've taken part in the WCF course a few years ago. I'm so glad I'm no longer working with WCF.

I wouldn't take this course, there are many better ways to spend your money as listed by CAD Bloke.

He's is a very smart man but a lot of what Richard stated is true -- "you, simple peon, must worship this wonderful <hammer|Architecture>".

[Peter Gfader]

I attended the class last year as well, and it was indeed a very "interesting" experience...

Juval is entertaining and very controversial and there were definitely some good points as well in the class...

I annoyed Juval a little bit with some questions until he didn't answer my questions at all :-(

I found a couple of similarities to Agile methodologies within the idesign "the method"...although not many ;-)

For example: Increased collaboration with business needed (although the architect is the main contact person) and Buddy programming. Things that are VERY Anti Agile:

• BDUF
• Mentality: "I am the chief architect thinking. Design is done by me"
• Manual testers are cheap 
• Coding is mechanic: Hire some code monkeys in Russia/China/...
• Software architecture is like building architecture

I would not take the class again. 

But I would take a WCF class with Juval...

I have the whole notes in my emails and maybe I find some time in the near future to put them on the web somewhere...

   .peter.gfader. (current mood = perfectly happy)

   http://blog.gfader.com

  .peter.gfader. (current mood = happy!) 

  Check this before you go live

  http://blog.gfader.com/2011/07/website-check-list-part-1-aspnet-4.html

[Andrew Stone]

While we are on the topic of “head up your a*se architecture” …

I have always thought as "Software Architecture" as a “thing” rather than a “role”.  

That thinking was probably born from working with individuals of complete technical ineptitude calling themselves Architects... PowerPoint is not an IDE.

I think what most of these people are actually doing is business strategy, no problem with that!

However their role should be labelled as such! “Architecture” is a poor choice.

I believe that “Architecture” (as the metaphor tries to explain it) is so interwoven into implementation of software that it can only possibly be done effectively by people who write code.  End of story.

Eric evens wrote a short article on Harmful Software Metaphors in 2004, interesting read:

http://domaindrivendesign.org/library/evans_2004_2

Stonie.

     Andrew Stone +61 (0)412 488 251
     and...@drivenlogic.com.au | http://drivenlogic.com.au

    DrivenLogic Pty Ltd | Pragmatic Software Construction
    GPO Box 2746, Sydney, NSW, 2001, Australia

[Nick Josevski]

Interesting announcement from Juval / iDesign they've brought on Richard Campbell from .NET Rocks podcast as an Atchitecture consultant.