Listen to Podcast on Your Favorite Service
| Apple Podcast | Podcast Addict | |
| Google Podcast Manager | Breaker | |
| Transistor.fm | Player FM | |
| Spotify | Listen Notes | |
| Stitcher | Amazon Music | |
| Pocket Casts | Radio Public |
The Soul of a New Machine
In 1982, Tracy Kidder published a book called “The Soul of a New Machine”. He precisely captured the transition between the traditional big-iron landscape of the computing industry as we adopted smaller desktop units. During 2019 and 2020, I recognized that software and hardware had again made a similar step forward. In homage to Mister Kidder’s insights and timing that have named this work: “The Soul of an Internet Machine”
The Soul of an Internet Machine
Commerce and innovation fuel the global economy. Follow the team through the ups and downs of the design, development, and launch of a new business venture. Along the way, we explore The Cloud and software development. Two stories for the price of one.
I am a tool smith. For over thirty years, I design and build the tools of the modern economy. My craft and the practice of it evolved from an older time with people working over flames, and forges, and whacking things with hammers.
Trailer
Software is the most ubiquitous tool of our economy and likely the least visible. You may be listening to my podcast on a computer weighing 200 grams – your mobile phone. In the recent six decades, tool smiths like me have put software into the tiniest of items. We have moved software from floppy disks to phone then into The Cloud.
From the first days of this project, I journaled my experiences as a business owner and technologist. I observed a subtle and massive shift in the architecture of software.
Listen to Series 1 (2020)
We build a great product then tried to launch into the teeth of the COVID pandemic. Oops.
Series 2023 Episode 1
Meet the team, the project, and chuckle at the business mis-adventures here in the introduction to The Soul of an Internet Machine.
Episode 2 | Data Tables
Software development process typically follows a series of steps that start with gathering requirements, developing a technical response, architecture, reviews, then construction. Reality slips in surprises and occasionally messes up the order.
Release: 23 DEC 2022
Episode 3 | Framework
Success in developing a software application depends entirely on the people. A client can short cut some of the risks by engaging a team that carries experience working together. Some clients hire individual programmers wishing that skills and techniques prove compatible. They think: I need software. I’ll hire programmers. A better practice involves finding a team where the individual possess individual expertise and a history of collaborating successfully. They build software together, support it together, then take on another project.
Release: 06 JAN 2023
Episode 4 | Middleware
Modern software operates within the Cloud or internet. Software requires its own software infrastructure. Some code runs on the Cloud or internet servers. Some code runs within the user’s browser. These languages are different. The back-end software tends to be structured procedural languages. The client-side software tends to be written using object oriented languages. And what runs between the client and the server?
Release: 20 JAN 2023
Episode 5 | The Color of Language
The inventions, designs, and concepts developed during the 1970s guide modern software development practices. They work. They are efficient. In the 21st Century, our software must support multiple cultures, multiple languages and bring a degree of flexibility the early pioneers did not design into their practices. How do we accommodate both?
During the episode, we explored the impact of assumptions we make. We explored historical assumptions and guidance about how data ought to be structured then I presented exceptions to these “rules”. When developing complex systems, we must find ways through complex challenges.
Release: 03 FEB 2023
Episode 6 | A Heavy Lift
The inventions, designs, and concepts developed during the 1970s guide modern software development practices. They work. They are efficient. In the 21st Century, our software must support multiple cultures, multiple languages and bring a degree of flexibility the early pioneers did not design into their practices. How do we accommodate both?
During the episode, we explored the impact of assumptions we make. We explored historical assumptions and guidance about how data ought to be structured then I presented exceptions to these “rules”. When developing complex systems, we must find ways through complex challenges.
Release: 17 FEB 2023
Episode 7 | Print That!
Engaging a team of software developers requires expertise, patience, and communication between the development team and team that owns and understands needs of the business. There are times that business can operate well with commercial software applications. Some businesses buy multiple tools. At some moment, the leaders within a company acknowledge that their internal or external business workflows are inefficient, or inaccurate, or incompatible with their other technology.
Is there something about your business that sets you apart from the other businesses? What is your competitive advantage? What are the messages you are sending to your clients? Invoicing represents a classic example of this topic.
What is an invoice?
First definition: It is a document that communicates what a client owes a vendor.
Second definition: It is a document that communicates.
Third definition: It is a document.
During this episode we will explore how an Oracle database can produce a document and we will explore some of the ways that organizations use and design invoices.