A crash course in Software Engineering
During one episode of the Java Posse, the gang mentioned a new podcast called Software Engineering Radio. I had subscribed to the feed (via iTunes), but had not really had chance to listen until a recent trip.
After listening to 10 episodes, I must say it's a wonderful show. It is very informative, with a pace that is not at all slow, but instead moves you along quite quickly. The basic gist of the show is that they cover high level software engineering topics, providing enough information to give you a conversational knowledge of the subject—and perhaps help you decide if it's a topic you want to delve into further. They provide a good balance between high level information and more concrete examples. And they also provide resources for further information.
As an example, in a recent episode about Remoting they give a guideline for when to use messaging vs. RPC style calls. Here is a short excerpt:
...use a messaging system in case you have an event drive application, when you have state machines driving the application logic, and use an RPC style communication when you have to integrate the result into your regular control flow. [1]It seems obvious. But for me it was a question that I had wondered about for some time—and they answered it quite concisely.
The show tries very hard to be language neutral and platform agnostic. It's a great show and I really recommend it to anyone who wants to dive deeper into software engineering.
meta-footnote-1=Episode 9: Remoting Pt.1 and Listener Feedback, http://media.libsyn.com/media/seradio/seradio-episode9-remoting_pt1.mp3, posted March 20, 2006, comment ~ at 12 minutes, 35 seconds blog comments powered by Disqus