TCU Auditor Discusses Software Architecture on International Podcast
By Secom / Serint
Anyone involved in software development is familiar with the term design pattern and understands its importance. Interestingly, in Brazil the term was mistranslated as padrão de projeto ( project pattern ), while in Portugal it is referred to as padrão de desenho ( design pattern ), which is certainly more appropriate. The concept itself was borrowed by Software Engineering from Civil Engineering and Architecture.
A design pattern or architectural pattern is a proven solution (or solution framework) successfully applied across multiple projects facing the same type of problem or challenge. In civil engineering, for example, the Arch Bridge pattern is used to span deep gaps such as canyons. In software development, the Microkernel pattern is used to create software that supports plug-ins, allowing functionality to be extended or modified without rebuilding the entire application.
In the software world, there is a long-standing and highly active patterns community that has, for decades, promoted the discovery, documentation, and dissemination of patterns. The Hillside Group is the non-profit organization at the heart of this community. It helps professionals understand how to describe and apply patterns while also organizing the PLoP conferences (including the flagship U.S. edition, AsianPLoP, EuroPLoP, and others). The Latin American edition, SugarLoafPLoP, held its inaugural conference in Rio de Janeiro.
Recently, the Hillside Group launched a podcast called PatternCast. Its latest episode focused on IDEALS, an acronym for the architectural principles meant to guide the development of modern Web systems.
IDEALS was first introduced years ago in an article by Paulo Merçon, an auditor at Setid (Department of Information Technology and Digital Evolution). He was the guest on this podcast episode, where he explained the meaning and relevance of each principle behind the acronym: Interface segregation, Deployability is on you, Event-driven, Availability over consistency, Loose-coupling, and Single responsibility. A LinkedIn post features a one-minute clip from the podcast highlighting the D in IDEALS, Deployability.
Paulo Merçon has previously delivered training sessions on this topic at the Brazilian Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) and has presented talks and tutorials on IDEALS at both national and international conferences. Always open to exchanging ideas about patterns, software architecture and technology, as well as mountain biking.