Damo's August 2017 Podcast Highlights

I subscribe to many podcasts, you can see the list as it was in 2015 here: Developer podcasts v2. I'm keeping a podcast blog here of the episodes that I find interesting or useful in some way.

Programming and Testing

[Crosscutting Concerns] Jeremy Clark Convincing Your Boss on Unit Testing http://crosscuttingconcerns.com/Podcast-056-Jeremy-Clark-Convincing-Your-Boss-on-Unit-Testing

• Regression tests - Change Code Without Fear
• Code coverage (NCover is a tool that reports on code coverage for .NET code)
• TDD and BDD and ATDD
• WPF and XML, MVVM

[Crosscutting Concerns] J Wolfgang Goerlich on Encryption Frameworks http://crosscuttingconcerns.com/Podcast-054-J-Wolfgang-Goerlich-on-Encryption-Frameworks

Agile

[Scrum Master Toolbox] Vasco Duarte discusses #NoEstimates http://scrum-master-toolbox.org/2017/08/podcast/2017-first-6-months-top-episodes-5-vasco-duarte-discusses-noestimates/

• What is #NoEstimates about for the author of the first #NoEstimates book? 
• What can we learn from Vasco’s journey that led him to find #NoEstimates?

[Mastering Business Analysis] Lightning Cast: Requirements Quality http://masteringbusinessanalysis.com/lightning-cast-requirements-quality/

• There’s a lot of talk about producing high-quality requirements but what does it really mean? Quality is a standard against which something is measured. It’s a degree of excellence or the ability to satisfy a need or expectation.
• When it comes requirements, people often talk about the characteristics of good requirements. The most common characteristics mentioned are: complete, concise, correct, clear, testable, traceable, and prioritized.

Architecture and Devops

[Software Engineering Daily] Serverless Continuous Delivery with Robin Weston https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2017/08/07/serverless-continuous-delivery-with-robin-weston/

• Serverless computing reduces the cost of using the cloud. Serverless also makes it easy to scale applications. 
• The downside: building serverless apps requires some mindset shift. 
• Serverless functions are deployed to transient units of computation that are spun up on demand. This is in contrast to the typical model of application delivery–the deployment of an application to a server or a container that stays running until you shut it down.

[Pipeline conf 2017] Serverless Architectures and Continuous Delivery https://vimeo.com/channels/pipelineconf/209686484

• Serverless architectures have been touted as the next evolution of cloud-hosted software. Indeed, the promise of resiliency and scalability without the need for infrastructure management sounds too good to be true!
• But how well do serverless architectures play with the patterns and practises of continuous delivery? Do they help or hinder us in our goal of delivering frequent and low risk software changes to production? What are the trade-offs to weigh up when considering using a serverless architecture on your next project?

[O'Reilly podcast] Mike Roberts on serverless architectures https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/mike-roberts-on-serverless-architectures

• Why Roberts calls serverless “the next evolution of cloud systems,” as individual process deployment and the resource allocation of servers are increasingly outsourced to vendors
• How serverless architectures use backend-as-a-service (BaaS) products and functions-as-a-service (FaaS) platforms
• The similarities and differences between a serverless architecture and microservices, and how microservices ideas can be applied to serverless
• Roberts explains that serverless is “not an all-or-nothing approach,” and that often “the best architecture for a company is going to be a hybrid architecture between serverless and non-serverless technologies.”
• Recent advances in serverless tooling, including progress in distributed system monitoring tools, such as Amazon’s X-Ray

[O'Reilly podcast] Neal Ford on evolutionary architecture https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/neal-ford-on-evolutionary-architecture

• Software architecture’s increasing popularity over the last few years; Ford says that “companies such as Netflix and Amazon showed that if you do software architecture really well, you build a competitive advantage over everybody else.”
• The non-functional requirements and soft skills needed to successfully implement software architecture.
• How evolutionary architecture enables you to adapt to the future rather than predict it; Ford notes the pitfalls of “trying to do predictive planning against an incredibly dynamic ecosystem.”
• Why guided change and incremental change are the two characteristics of an evolutionary architecture.
• The difference between evolutionary and adaptive systems.

[Infoq] Security Considerations and the State of Microservices with Sam Newman https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/sam-newman-security-microservices-state

• Wesley Reisz talks with Sam Newman about microservices. 
• They explore the current state of the art with regards to the architectural style and corresponding tooling and deployment platforms. 
• They then discuss how microservices increase the surface area of where sensitive information can be read or manipulated, but also have the potential to create systems that are more secure.

[Devops Radio] From Docker to DevOps with John Willis https://devopsradio.libsyn.com/episode-21-from-docker-to-devops-with-john-willis

• In this episode of DevOps Radio, John Willis, former Director of Ecosystems at Docker, shares everything from his experience in the early days of DevOps to his predictions of what the future holds

/stuff

[TED] The era of blind faith in big data must end https://www.ted.com/talks/cathy_o_neil_the_era_of_blind_faith_in_big_data_must_end

• Algorithms decide who gets a loan, who gets a job interview, who gets insurance and much more -- but they don't automatically make things fair. 
• Mathematician and data scientist Cathy O'Neil coined a term for algorithms that are secret, important and harmful: "weapons of math destruction." 
• Learn more about the hidden agendas behind the formulas.