Matt Stine

Cloud Application Architecture Patterns

We make many assumptions when we develop our applications. Many of these assumptions no longer hold true when we start to build applications for the cloud. Cloud platforms also introduce architectural possibilities that do not exist in traditional deployment settings. This session will examine five architectural patterns that we can apply to our applications in order to prepare them for the unique characteristics of cloud environments.

Effective Java Reloaded

Even with the recent explosion in alternative languages for the JVM, the vast majority of us are still writing code in “Java the language” in order to put bread on the table. Proper craftsmanship demands that we write the best Java code that we can possibly write. Fortunately we have a guide in Joshua Bloch's Effective Java.

Docker for Developers

“Docker is an open-source engine that automates the deployment of any application as a lightweight, portable, self-sufficient container that will run virtually anywhere.” Docker creates containers that provide running process with:

• an equal slice of CPU
• a maximum memory quota
• its own process ID (PID) namespace
• its own network interface
• its own private root filesystem

It does this by leveraging low-level Linux kernel primitives like cgroups and namepaces. The end result is a portable application container that can run anywhere Docker can run, including on VMs, bare-metal servers, OpenStack clusters, public instances, or combinations of the above.

Functional SOLID

Robert Martin assembled the SOLID family of principles to provide a useful guide to help us create object-oriented software designs that were resilient in the face of change. In recent years, the need to write highly-concurrent software in order to leverage increasingly ubiquitous multicore architectures, as well as general interest in more effectively controlling complexity in large software designs, has driven a renewed interest in the functional programming paradigm. Given the apparent similarity in their goals, “What is the intersection of SOLID with functional programming?” is a natural question to ask.

Programming with Immutability

For much of the last two years I've delivered a two-part series at NFJS shows entitled “Effective Java Reloaded.” For all pracical purposes, it is an ala carte style rehash of the book Effective Java, written by Josh Bloch. One of my favorite parts of the discussion is of Item #15, which tells us to “Minimize Mutability.” If we turn this inside out, we're actually saying that we want to MAXIMIZE IMMUTABILITY. When we do this, we reap many benefits, such as code that is easier to reason about and that is inherently thread-safe. This can carry us a long way in the direction of program correctness and decreased complexity. However, when we start to program with immutability, several major questions arise.