On Everything

The story of computing is the story of humanity. Civilization is filled with storytelling, which helps us understand our past, reconcile our present, and be…

Computational humor is a technically intriguing problem.

How do you disrupt an industry Question the fundamental, sacred assumptions on which that industry is founded, then journey along the path of the possible.

The next generation of software-intensive systems will be taught instead of programmed.

Different ages of humanity have required different modes of thinking.

We live in a world of unprecedented complexity and astonishing possibility.

Many fear the rise of superintelligent AIs. Such fears are at best unfounded and at worst misleading.

The story of computing is the story of humanity. This is a story of ambition, invention, creativity, vision, avarice, and serendipity, powered by a refusal to…

Developing software-intensive systems is like many other things, but it's also like no other thing.

Computing amplifies governments' actions but can also temper their behavior by enabling mechanisms for private communication and for open, transparent…

There was a time we could only dream of machines that served as companions, as helpmates, as servants.

Parallels exist between the Industrial Revolution and our current computing revolution regarding risk, transparency, and responsibility.

Each generation remakes itself. In the context of the historical, economic, technological, and cultural forces around it, each generation must confront,…

There have been many periods in the unfolding of human history when we have asserted that it was possible to catalog all that was known or…

Explores how technology shapes the person and the ideas behind our decisions.

NASA's Voyager is an exquisite object of exploration and of engineering.

Storytelling involves weaving abstractions about fundamental truths regarding the world and the human experience to entertain and educate.

Every line of code represents a moral decision; every bit of data collected, analyzed, and visualized has moral implications.

No matter your individual position on the matter, faith is a powerful element of the human experience.

There are three things that future generations may never experience: the smell of books, the sound of a computer, and the sanctuary of privacy.

For those on the outside of the curtain of computing, there is much mystery behind the matter of software-intensive systems.

On the one hand, we seek to build software-intensive systems that are innovative, elegant, and supremely useful.

The subject of the computability of the mind introduces complex philosophical, ethical, and technical issues.

Our present world is full of Dorothys, scarecrows, lions, tin men-and yes, humbugs-all on a quest of simply living.

Computing was once a companion to conflict; computing is now an instrument of war; computing is becoming a theater of war.

We live in an enchanted land of our own making. While much of the world benefits from the technology that has made that enchantment possible, much of the…

Computing has transformed humanity in ways that we have only begun to metabolize.

There exists considerable literature on the public face of civil architecture: what it is, how we may judge it, how we are changed by it.

There comes a point of no return in the life of every successful software-intensive system, a point where you can no longer place a pile of your best…

All complex systems grow from smaller systems that work in the first place; all complex systems will fail, in one way or another.

There is complexity, and then there is organized complexity.

Security and privacy are interdependent concepts. Each impacts the other, but to say that they are alternatives is a false dichotomy.

Making manifest, syndicating, and then governing a system's architecture facilitates understanding, reasoning about, and transforming that system with…

When we grow a software-intensive system, we start with something that is deeply technical, something that is constrained by the laws of physics and the…

The article is discussing architecture of software-intensive systems and its application in road traffic management.

Developers, for the most part, don't draw diagrams because diagrams all too often don't offer any fundamental value that advances essential work.

The architecture of a software-intensive system is best reasoned about through multiple, nearly independent views.

In this paper, oxymoron is discussed. An oxymoron is not a bovine of meager intelligence, nor is it a chemical compound with two covalently…

All complex systems fail, by some measure of the word "fail," with consequences ranging from benign to catastrophic.

An architectural review serves several purposes: to gain confidence in the design, to reason about alternatives, to attend to architectural rot.

Enterprise architecture and technical architecture are related yet different: whereas EA focuses on the…

This paper present the architecture of a software intensive system.

The paper is an editorial that discusses the economics aspect of software industry.

The paper discusses the abundance of software products in the face of the economic scarcity.

Simple architectures have conceptual integrity and are better than more complex ones.

The metaphor of software development as building construction is an old one.

Successful software-intensive systems are generally quite innovative, as evidenced by their success.

Software-intensive systems, like bridges and societies, are subject to collapse.

Over the past 25 years, we've made great advances in tooling, technologies, and techniques that make software design more concrete.

Every new line of code quickly becomes legacy. When that legacy mounts, it forms a significantly massive pile of software, which cannot…

Without refactoring, complex software-intensive systems become increasingly irregular and thus increasingly chaotic over time.

To set the context for the discussion that follows, there are some fundamentals worth repeating.

As the code written today becomes part of tomorrow's inexorably growing pile of legacy, preserving these stories becomes increasingly important.

The author poses the question:is there a moral dimension to developing software Should software architects have a professional code of…

This article deals with the comparison between building architecture and software architecture.

Architecture is an artifact that's governed throughout the software life cycle - from conception through development to deployment and finally evolution, then…

Virtually all well-structured music, music that pleases the ear and moves the spirit, is full of patterns.

The architecture of a software-intensive system is largely irrelevant to its end users.

Whenever the author conducts an architectural assessment for software development projects, he endeavors to speak truth to power: those with…

Software systems usually have the same basic architectural pattern as their earlier incarnations, manifesting in decreasingly refined forms as we move back in…

It appears to be with software architectures: for a given domain, even across the decades, forces are at play that are best resolved by a common architectural…

Software development is ultimately an engineering activity, whose primary activity is to deliver executable artifacts in a manner that balances the…

Every interesting software-intensive system has an architecture.

For the past two years, the author has been working to create a handbook of software…

Will the coming years bring the dawn of software's golden age or an ever-worsening nightmare of disasters and cutbacks The author explains why either…

Sure, problems lie ahead. But this optimist looks forward to the fray, finds alternatives at every obstacle, and accepts the consequences.