ThoughtWorks Podcast

Learn how agile disciplines are applied to the complexities of data science to demonstrate incremental value within intelligent systems and solutions. Join ThoughtWorks' CTO, Rebecca Parsons, and Principal Associate, Alexey Boas, as they interview agile data scientist David Johnston and ThoughtWorks' head of data science, Ken Collier. The result is a better understanding of how agile practices are adapted to the uncertainty of machine learning, and how data scientists fit within a cross-functional agile delivery team. -- https://www.thoughtworks.com/podcasts

In this podcast, ThoughtWorks' Karl Brown and Gurpreet Luthra discuss the benefits, challenges, costs and common myths associated with open source technology. They talk about the suitability of open source software for specific needs, especially in global health. Karl Brown is the Director of Technology for the Office of Social Change Initiatives (OSCI). Gurpreet Luthra is the Product Manager for Bahmni, an Open Source Hospital Management System for low resource environments.

In this edition of the Beacon Podcast, Software Architect Neal Ford and CTO Rebecca Parsons go deeper into the definition of evolutionary architecture and discuss fitness functions. Learn more by visiting the Technology Radar: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar

In this edition of the Beacon podcast, ThoughtWorkers Neal Ford, Rachel Laycock and Jonny LeRoy discuss why and how to build your own tech radar. Learn more in this blog article: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/build-your-own-technology-radar or by visiting the Tech Radar https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar

In this episode of the ThoughtWorks Beacon Podcast, ThoughtWorkers Jonny LeRoy and Chelsea Komlo talk about security and specifically how it fits into the development process of an agile team. Jonny and Chelsea begin by talking about the "Security Sandwich" - a concept first coined in ThoughtWorks' Technology Radar. https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar "We called it the security sandwich because the meat of your delivery was in the middle, but then security came on either side like the two pieces of bread, " Jonny explained. "And there would be some upfront security planning and documentation, and then some penetration testing and certification at the end. We are really on a mission to work out how to bake security processes into continuous delivery approaches." The podcast continues with Chelsea and Jonny providing next steps for tech leaders who want to incorporate a security culture within their respective teams. "One thing that's important to remember is that you're never going to completely be 100% secure, but you also want to be able to know if something is happening and react. So when we think about security, we think about both hardening our systems and also reacting," Chelsea reminds listeners. You can follow us on Twitter @thoughtworks. For more information on ThoughtWorks and our podcast, visit www.thoughtworks.com.

In this episode, we talk to ThoughtWorks developer Florian Sellmayr about LambdaCD, an open source library for building build pipelines as code, written in Clojure. Florian shares with us the problems he has faced with traditional continuous integration systems, for example Jenkins. He makes a passionate case for LambdaCD’s approach of building your pipelines like you build your microservices - using such powerful tools like a functional programming language, version control, tests and refactoring. Finally, Florian outlines how the project evolved from a thought experiment into a library under active use and development and gives hints for upcoming contributors that want to help in shaping LambdaCD’s future. http://www.lambda.cd/

In this 13-minutes long ThoughtWorks Beacon podcast, Neal Ford, a software architect and meme wrangler at ThoughtWorks, shares his working definition of "evolutionary architecture." "Here is our working definition of evolutionary architecture," Neal says. "An evolutionary architecture supports incremental guided change as a first principle along multiple dimensions." He also talks about the upcoming book on the topic he is co-authoring with ThoughtWorks CTO Rebecca Parsons and Lead Developer and Agile Coach Patrick Kua. Stay tuned. You'll hear much more about this topic from Neal, Rebecca, and Pat as time goes on.

One of the themes we highlighted in the April 2016 edition of the ThoughtWorks Technology Radar was “open source as a virtuous byproduct.” That’s a fairly high-minded phrase. In this 30-minute podcast, ThoughtWorks' Technology Advisory Board Members Badri Janakiraman, Martin Fowler, Mike Mason and Rebecca Parsons discuss this theme and the general state of open source in the industry. The lively roundtable discussion touches on product development, security, technical culture, and machine learning as they relate to open source. The podcast ends with a gentle reminder from Badri: "The availability of tools and source code out there does not mean that we take away the responsibility of development teams in organizations to have discipline and rigor in their development processes." Check out the Technology Radar for more on the trends and technology that is shaping our future: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar

With the recent rise of the Zika epidemic across countries around the world, we interviewed ThoughtWorks' Director of Global Health Dr. David Walton to understand more about the Zika virus— its origin, its various symptoms and manifestations, possible remedial measures that we can take as citizens of the world and also the limited role that technology can play in containing this deadly virus.

In this episode of the ThoughtWorks Beacon Podcast, Software Architect Neal Ford, Prasanna Pendse, Tech Principal, and Jonny LeRoy, Head of Technology, North America, discuss blockchain, how it differs from Bitcoin and what the future holds for the technology. [Disclaimer: This podcast isn't an introduction to blockchain. To the get the most out of it, you should have some knowledge of the technology.] During the conversation, Neal cautions that the current problems with Bitcoin have nothing to do with the viability of blockchain as a technology, “but has everything to do with all the non-technical aspects of currency and how messy that is in the real world.” The podcast closes with advice from Jonny on peeling back some of the underlying technologies to answer some key questions for technologists. How might you use blockchain? What types of problems could be solved with blockchain? These are really good questions to ask. The answer isn't always blockchain. Enjoy this episode of the ThoughtWorks podcast and, as always, please share your feedback and ideas with us @thoughtworks.

In this episode, Johannes Thönes, a ThoughtWorks developer based in Hamburg, interviews Lukasz Plotnicki, also a developer and ThoughtWorker, on the Backend for Frontend microservices pattern. Lukasz is the author of BFF @ SoundCloud, an article about the backend for frontends pattern which he looked into with Sam Newman at SoundCloud. This pattern describes the creation of one specific backend to provide functionality specifically to the need of a single client. Johannes talks with Lukasz about the BFF pattern rooted in a Microservices environment. First, they explain the difference between UI fragment composition and the backend for frontends approach as two alternatives. Then they discuss how backend for frontends fit into a microservices architecture and how it can be structured organizationally. We close the episode by discussing how many backend for frontends are already out there.

In this episode of the ThoughtWorks Tech Leaders Podcast, ThoughtWorks CTO Rebecca Parsons and Author and Software Architect Neal Ford discuss the meaning of evolutionary architecture and how organizations can use it as a business advantage. Neal explains, "When you introduce things like DevOps and continuous delivery, all of a sudden you change the level of granularity in which you can make changes in your architecture and that becomes a really huge enabler for being able to make decisions at a higher level..." Rebecca adds, "What you need to do on Day One is think about what are the critical success factors for your architecture? Does it need to be highly available? Does it need to be highly scalable? Is security your major driving concern? Is it data loss? Those are all possible outcomes for architectures and all systems don't display the same kind of characteristics. That's what we mean when we're talking about evolutionary architecture."

Companies of all sizes, and across all industries, are struggling with digital transformation. A data-driven architecture that enables getting the right data, to the right place, at the right time positions an organization to create and deliver exceptional digital experiences. This podcast, a conversation between Scott Shaw, director of technology, Australia and Evan Bottcher, technical principal, provides insight into the challenges companies face when embarking on the digital journey.

In this interview with ThoughtWorkers Tom Duckering and Pat Downey, we first introduce the threats coming out of the pipeline. We establish the continuous delivery pipeline as a production system because it will create what is in production. We also give an example on how easy it can be to get root access with an anonymous user - and of course we discuss strategies to make a pipeline secure enough for the attack trees a customer might face.

Our newest ThoughtWorks podcast is a thought provoking discussion between Sam Newman, consultant, and Erik Doernenburg, head of technology, ThoughtWorks Europe, in which they contemplate the advantages and disadvantages of microservices and cloud computing. During the conversation, Erik advises listeners that the focus should be on the implementation of the actual services and not on the "glue" in between the services. Sam offers up an analogy, saying implementing an architecture based on microservices is like working with marble. You must chip away gradually. “It’s an incremental thing, not an upfront exercise,” he says.