Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP – the lamp stack is commonly used throughout the internet. But it is only part of your technology stack, the list goes further. The PHP extensions, your framework of choice, some NoSQL solution and a messaging queue, a thick varnish or squid layer, preprocessors like LESS and Coffeescript, HTML boilerplates, CSS frameworks, javascript libraries and client data storage solutions and a whole lot more. Each layer of your stack comes with the features you chose it for.

Using these features could become a problem though..

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architecture

We are currently thinking about a big project for the coming months. And because it’s so big already we want to launch in two steps. One quick first shot to get something out the door and then think about the second one in more detail.

Only that’s not really sensible.

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architecture

We all know how important architectures are for a long living software design. Only a good and solid architecture can provide sustainability.

But you also need to care about statics.

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architecture

One of the things I am currently working at is a project that affects two communicating components. Both components are handled by dedicated departments and therefor different development teams.

Just phrasing the functional requirements alone won’t cut it.

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architecture

In my company there are four development teams each with different clients and there is a an architectural team to support them. For the last few month this architectural team is developing a real website that will become the prototype for all websites.

To me development seems less attractive now.

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architecture

Yesterday I had to be pragmatic. Responsible. Sensible. Not technically but monetarily. I had the chance to go for the technically best solution and opted for quite the opposite.

And I would do it again.

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architecture · Legacy Code

Last Tuesday I stumbled upon a interesting post by Paolo “Nusco” Perrotta from Italy entitled Is Windows 8 solving the wrong problem? He’s got some points there and his post really got me thinking if the same logic can be applied to other developments as well.

For instance to HTML5 as a cross device strategy?

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Android · architecture · cross-device · html5 · iOS · web apps

Today it happened again to me. I was writing some code for that awesome little tool of mine which I am really excited about. I’ve been writing for a few days now but something was wrong.

There was this smell..

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architecture · clean code · Clean Code Developer · Code Quality · Design · smells

When your building large and long lasting applications you can easily require a multitude of technologies for various tasks. It is important though to find a good balance between choosing the optimal setup and maintaining the ability to change.

It’s often not easy to keep a distance when choosing a software and at the same time thinking about exchanging it for something else in the future.

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architecture · Separation of Concerns · Software Development

For the last few years the topic of finding synergies in web projects was very present in my daily work. I gained a lot of experience in this field I think also by making a lot of mistakes. So I learned a lot about limitations and opportunities and how technical feasibility is of little important compared to structural acceptance.

In this post I want to share one of the early mistakes I made and that I still witness being made.

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architecture · synergies