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Phil (aka MP3Monster)'s Blog

~ from Technology to Music

Phil (aka MP3Monster)'s Blog

Tag Archives: Design

My next Packt Project has been announced!

17 Saturday Nov 2018

Posted by mp3monster in APIs & microservices, Packt, Technology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

API, Design, online, Packt, safari, training

My next Packt project (via O’Reilly) is not a book, but a short online training course about  good API design, API 1st and some tools that can support an API 1st methodologies. Register for the session here.

It includes a closer look at cloud tools such as Oracle’s excellent Apiary (sorry if this sounds like a sales pitch, but it is a good tool and the words of the found of RestLet confirm this) along with SwaggerHub and a few other options.

A good API goes beyond just the payload definition and I’ll walk through the other considerations and explain why these other areas are important.

Domain Driven Design

05 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by mp3monster in APIs & microservices, General, mindmap, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book, Design, mindmap, Patterns

I have been wading through Eric Evan’s Domain Driven Design Book. As with many design and architecture focussed books I try to mindmap as I go so I have a quick reference resource. The mindmap for this book can be seen below and is linked to the WiseMap version which is dynamic.

In terms of of a review of the book, it contains lots of nuggets of helpful ideas and information but it is a rather heavy going to read. Some points feel over laboured such as the use of consistent language, at times it feels like half the book is dedicated to this one point. Whilst Chapter 14 – Maintaining Model Integrity sounds unadventurous as a chapter, I found this to have a lot of really helpful content such as going into the details Bounded Contexts and so on which is highly relevant to the world of microservices.

design book.png

eBook(lets) from O’Reilly

27 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by mp3monster in Books, General, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

architecture, Big Data, booklet, books, creative commons, Design, development, ebook, ebooks, free, open books, oreilly, vJUG

I received an email through the virtual Java User Group highlighting the availability of a couple of eBooks around Java published by O’Reilly. The details are below. The books are more booklets (nothing wrong with that). The key difference being that they are shorter and focused on one or two focused subjects (in this case Java 8’s Lambda’s & Streams) which is great because I don’t want a whole Java book again, I just want to get a handle on the key changes and language innovations. It is worth highlighting that these aren’t just ‘free chapters’ which is what you see happen sometimes as the goal of the book is described, doesn’t depend on prior chapters to work the illustrated material and structured with the appropriate cover material contents, index etc so works as a discrete entity.

This approach seems to be coming more common at O’Reilly at least as a marketing device, and we have seen this being done with the Dummies brand where the booklets have then been printed as conference give aways.

Some may argue that this is a reflection of our ever shortening attention span with books. This maybe the case for some, but I suspect it is more about providing some that is more digestible than a ‘free chapter’, but more importantly reflects the recognition that for books that are providing guides (as opposed to reference books – which I’d include patterns books) people don’t want to buy a latest edition of a book where the 1st chapters are exactly the same as the previous edition of the book and that the only significant change is a new section on Lambdas for example.

Any way the latest book details received are:

Introducing Java 8
by Raoul-Gabriel Urma
Offers a practical tutorial to some of the core Java 8 features and gets you programming quickly with Java 8.
Object Oriented vs Functional Programming
by Richard Warburton
Explains the similarities and differences between functional programming and object oriented programming with Java focused examples.

http://insightfullogic.com
@RichardWarburto

The other book(lets) that have drawn my attention to the trend include:

  • Static Site Generators
  • Migrating to Cloud-Native Application Architectures
  • Software Architecture Patterns
  • Little Book of HTML/CSS Coding Guidelines
  • Java the Legend – history of Java
  • Designing Great Web APIs
  • Modern Java Script
  • Hadoop with Python
  • Release Engineering How Google Builds and Delivers Software
  • Functional Programming in Python
  • 20 Python Libraries You Aren’t Using (But Should)
  • Monitoring Distributed Systems
  • Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks

In addition to these Book(let)s O’Reilly offer a range of ‘reports’ such as:

  • Mapping Big Data, Evaluating Machine Learning Models, Data Driven  (the full range can be seen at Free Data Reports)
  • Open by Design
  • Design for Voice Interfaces (Siri, Cortana etc)

 

In addition O’Reilly have a page on ‘Open Books’ (here) – covering significant texts O’Reilly have had some involvement in but published under licenses such as Create Commons.

 

  • [18-01-16 Update] New booklet added for Modern Java Script
  • [13-03-16 Update] New booklet Continuous Delivery With Windows and Dot Net
  • [14-03-16 Update] New booklet Modern Java EE Design Patterns
  • [13-08-16 Update] New booklet Release Engineering How Google Builds and Delivers Software and Functional Programming in Python
  • [16-09-16 Update] new booklet
    • 20 Python Libraries You Aren’t Using (But Should)
  • [19-09-16 Update] New Booklet Monitoring Distributed Systems
  • [28-09-16]New Booklet Little Book of HTML/CSS Frameworks

Microservice UI Positioning

14 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by mp3monster in General, Technology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

CSS, Design, devops, Microservices, Redhat, UI

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend RedHat’s day in London on Microservices. There were some great presentations and some ideas that are both simple and potentially very effective. It wasn’t a simple Microservices solves everything get into out tech stack, there was some reality checks as well.

The challenge I have been unable to square up yet, is the idea that each Microservices would have its own UI.  On the surface, it makes a lot of sense, after all the UI needs to reflect the capabilities of the service.

The challenge comes in the form, that a User Interface needs to have consistency across the board. Yes, many will immediately point to CSS., which undeniably provide a level of consistency. But UI needs run a lot deeper. Let me point out a couple of illustrations of this:

  • Recent switch to web interfaces reflecting the new ‘flat’ visual format
  • Adoption of app on a page through AngularJS
  • Lots of illustrations can be seen at elegant Theme

This goes beyond CSS3 in many cases, but the libraries being used – so impacting development. Now here is the rub, the backend service functionality won’t change but the UI implementation will and needs to be deployed consistently across the board in one go for B2B and critically for B2C. You can destroy a good product with a poor UI and sell a rubbish app with a good one. All of which would mean deploying updated all Microservices at once if they embody the UI. The linking of all the Microservices like this is completely contrary to the goals of agility driven the Microservices strategy.

Add to this, the Microservices approach promotes a DevOps approach, yet organisations may only employ 1 or 2 real user experience specialists rather than  try and spread them across multiple service teams it maybe better to focus them into one or two service teams that just build the UI.

Which kind of leads me to the argument that I would suggest that your UI is a separate service or small group of services to the core functional side of things. So those PR driven website overhauls, and revisions to match user experience expectations can be done without impacting the core capabilities, demanding a total regression test and locking your entire set of services into a unified release cycle.

Impact of App Maintenance on brand

26 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by mp3monster in General, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

application, brand, Design, guidance, impact, mobile, Virgin

I have recently been working on some guidance on when to use mobile or web applications for my employer. What has been interesting is that there is plenty of information on the technical dimensions that should be considered. But not so much on the negative brand impact that could occur if the application isn’t targeted at users properly, and most crucially sustained.

Let me show what I mean by highlighting some common, but relevant observations.

Many end user businesses tend to work on a project or programme basis, so once a solution whether internal, B2B or B2C once delivered gets handed over to the operational teams to monitor and keep alive. Even for devops once the solution is deemed complete the bulk of the team will move to new objectives. Net result is that the solution remains static until new functional requirements are needed.

As businesses, we would like to increase the ability for customers to serve themselves and ‘shape their customer journey’ to what they want. All of which means we will increasingly see 1st point of customer engagement either as new or returning customers through apps in the same way as websites have prior to the rise in mobility.

We know that mobile devices are evolving at a tremendous rate driven by vendor competition. This has resulted in things like ever changing screen sizes and resolutions which have largely been growing but with Apple jumping into the watch market I think we’ll see another change in the next couple of years.

Not only have the screen resolutions changed, the interaction and presentation styles have been evolving. Take the huge change for IOS7 with the adoption of the ‘flat’ design paradigm, and with IOS8 subtler but important changes to allow changing of the feel of aspects like the keypad. This all before you think about the change and evolution of other solutions that you might want to integrate with such as Facebook, Twitter etc.

So, back to my original point, what does this mean? Well essentially if you’re going to invest in mobile apps you have to keep up the investment with regular updates to keep the experience current, you can’t really use the project model. With stats like Gartner’s around security (75% of apps not passing security tests by 2015) there is a clear need also to invest in capability to drive quality into the solution in all the less visible non functional issues and examining the solution continually from the user view point. This all adds upto a mobile application not being cheap.

Just to bring my point home, below are some screen shots from the Apple App Store taken very recently which reflect what happens and the impact you could end up with (and the feedback in a form that you’re unlikely to address). Not to mention Virgin is a pretty brand aware organisation, so we’d have thought they wouldn’t have got caught out by these challenges.

IMG_0102.PNG

IMG_0101.PNG

Review of Creating Flat Design Websites

18 Friday Jul 2014

Posted by mp3monster in Books, General, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

book, Bootstrap, Design, Designmodo, HTML, Packt, review, skeuomorphic, UI, website

I always find when looking at book if I encounter early in the book comments such as “…eventually I found out that design is not about the answers, it’s about asking the right questions …” as Antonio Pratas does in the Acknowledgement of Creating Flat Design Websites that the book feels like I can trust the author as this sort of thing is both an honest observation and one that reflects some more considered thinking. The book beards this point out. For example rather than pitching the technology or approach as a tool for all things as many IT books have habit if doing, even in the first couple of chapters we are clearly informed that flat design isn’t necessarily correct approach in all cases and examples are given to illustrate the point.

The opening chapter explains the ideas of flat design vs skeuomorphic, and a brief history of the design approaches and “flat’s” ruse in popularity. Even providing an incredibly simple illustration that doesn’t demand that you be a graphic artist to achieve to show the differences and how you might move from skeuomorphic to flat.

The following chapters look at the consideration for usability, referencing Jakob Neilsen’s work (and if design piques your interest I’d highly recommend the work of Neilsen’s partner at NN/g – Don Norman with writing such as the Design of Everyday Things). The only criticism I might make here is with UI design, and specifically web there are legal (in the UK this cones presently as part if disability discrimination) and industry standards (particularly W3C’s WCAG standard/guidelines) aren’t really mentioned. But if you start digging into good usability material you will encounter these aspects.

From this point when are then guided through a design approach with plenty of recommendations on how to approach the design phase (from the basics of considering your target audience onwards).  It is only chapter 5 that really get stuck into web tech with HTML and the Designmodo framework built on Twitter’s Bootstrap and chapter 6 covers building your own flat UI framework. So this book maybe pitched at web app development, but actually the bulk of the books content holds true whether you’re working on web solutions, thick apps for the desktop or the mobile variety as it embodies the principles if good interface design.

Not only does it successfully talk about good design it bridges the gap between techies and graphic artists without the sense it is trying to address either skills base. No mean feat.

Rather than stealing the book’s wealth of useful resources, I’ll point you at links relevant the book and it’s author. From there you’ll find a cast array of helpful resources. The references :

  • Packt Book webpage
  • Antonio Pratas’ website
  • Antonio Pratas on LinkedIn
  • An article on skeuomorphic design
  • Twitter Bootstrap
  • Designmodo framework

CreatingFlatDesignWebsite

Designing in a license constrainted World – Reprise

16 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by mp3monster in General, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

constrained, Design, license, Licensing

A while back I blogged (here) about designing in a license constrained world.  Well I’ve taken that blog further and developed a supporting slide deck, to help elaborate on the thinking.

 

Architecting within a License constrained world

20 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by mp3monster in Oracle, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

architecture, Design, Licensing, Oracle, Patterns

In an ideal world software design shouldn’t be driven by software license costs if constraints. But when you can be paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars per server for an application or middleware it isn’t an aspect you can ignore. The challenge is when licensing rules are so complex like those for Oracle you either end up with licensing experts reviewing design artefact or you need to find an alternate approach (and the hope of using agile strategies with such a review framework necessary have gone).

For those less aware of Oracle’s licensing you have be licensed by CPU, by users, by profitability and probably will be impacted by atleast 2 of these models. Then each license can also be constrained by usage (unlimited or limited) which says that you can use some products with some things and not others, or use your licenses for only particular activities. Finally you have product dependencies, so the licensing of 1 product and indirectly impact how you can use another. For example I may have unlimited use for Weblogic (on 20 CPUs) but SOA Suite, the components that together allow you to run Process Integration Packs (PIPs) which as a Fusion Middleware offering provide a collection of middleware components to achieve common tasks – for example keep your customer information synchronised between a CRM solution and your accounting solution, which maybe limited to only work with Oracle applications – so extending a PIP to also send one of your own application an event wouldn’t be allowed (unless you’ve built an extension on an approved Oracle application).  Then for fun you have what are called Unlimited License Agreements (ULAs) – although they’re not really unlimited.

Just when you think you’ve got a grip of the licensing story, there is one more mix of the pot.  When you’re negotiating licensing you’re likely to be working through a purchasing team who aren’t technical Oracle product experts, and licensing discussions are likely to be done whilst costing a programme where unless you’re an enterprise mature organisation or operationally very well instrumented to measure this information it isn’t going to be easy to get volumetrics and an ability to determine likely throughput (i.e. how complex and demanding will your custom logic be).  So by the time you get to from your conceptual to-be perspective which told your which products you need to when you’re actually working on the realisation you may well hit  challenges.

With all of this in mind, we’ve arrived with the idea of usage scenarios. We’ve tried to differentiate usage scenarios from design patterns, as their goals also differ; a pattern is typically to provide a means to describe and provide good design approaches to technical problems, think of things facades and factory’s from the Gang of Four (GoF) or composite patterns such as VETO and here we seeking a means to communicate what can or can’t be done. These aren’t use cases either, if for no other reason to avoid the UML notation association.

So how does it work, so we have identified common or likely approaches to using our Oracle technology stack, need them so there is a short hand reference (as you have with design patterns) and then determined of the scenario is permissible by licensing rules. The idea is that an application architect or developer can design a solution and then verify the solution against the scenarios. To start with go for the obvious scenarios, as things go forward when a situation crops up where there isn’t a scenario you can add the the catalogue  and get confirmation as to compliance.  This should mean after a short period of development you’ll reach a point where you’re not consulting licensing experts all the time.  The secret is not to try ‘boil the ocean’ on day 1 as you’ll invest a lot of time, potentially creating representations of things you’ll never do and produce a very bulky artefact for your developers to try and work with.  Oracle’s AIA Developer Guide

With the scenario we document references to the various license and contract documents showing which clauses drove the decision so you don’t have to rework out how you determined the legitimacy of the scenario.  I’ve created a fake representation of a usage scenario below.

There is a further bonus, you can drive into the guidance when there is a need for additional governance attention.

Of course this mechanism doesn’t tackle the question of is there sufficient licensed capacity. As capacity management has its own set of challenges (such as balancing the capacity requirement forecasts for multiple current development programmes that are likely to be taking place vs actual consumption and forecast consumption for business growth).

The following diagram is a mock up of the sort of diagrams produced. Mocked up as I don’t want (and shouldn’t) disclose any information about what specific technologies and approaches we’ve adopted internally.

Usage Scenario with 1 scenario acceptable, another note

Usage Scenario with 1 scenario acceptable, another not

 

Key

 

approval

 

SOAPatterns Mind map

17 Monday Aug 2009

Posted by mp3monster in General, mindmap, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Design, freemind, mindmap, Patterns, Service Orientated Architecture, SOA, software

My SOA Patterns mind map can be viewed in more detail here.

SOA Patterns

SOA Patterns

Oracle Ace Director

TOGAF 9

Logging in Action

Oracle Cloud Integration Book

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