Mykel Alvis
We're just trying to get better at this.
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
Mykel Alvis has over 4 decades of working in software development to arrive at the hot mess that he is today. His career has covered essentially every phase of the software delivery life cycle, including support, operations, testing, architecture and management. Mykel currently operates Array Consulting, which is dedicated to increasing delivery by improving the underlying principles within organizations.
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Four Letter Words
There are some four letter words that I'd like to talk about. Really bad words. Really terrible words. Words that hurt people and efforts. Words that cause the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth.
I'll tell you two of these words.
The first is "just". Not like justice; like "only", which is the second word.
These words have caused me and people around me untold amounts of pain. I want to tell you about that pain.
HITRUST and Cloud-Native: So How's That Going So Far?
The HITRUST framework is a significant hurdle that many business find it convenient or necessary to overcome. Our company is in the process of becoming HITRUST certified, but we're [more than a little] weird from the HITRUST perspective. The reason is that we utilize a lot of modern paradigms that don't necessarily mesh with The HITRUST Way.
In this talk, I'll explain how we started this and hopefully what sort of great shape we're in along that path. This will include how our automation has helped (or hurt) us along the way, and how we've used compliance-as-a-service tools to improve this process.
Note that this process is currently underway (as of 2021-03) and so by the time we get to ADDO, anything is possible!
One Weird Trick For Ensuring Failure
Very small companies have a mass of challenges that larger organizations don't usually have. But larger organizations have profound challenges, as well. One such challenge is a form of despair that often overtakes groups as a form of institutional learned helplessness. This talk attempts to provide a framework for discourse around this problem and how to address it.
Repository Management: It's Not Just for the JVM
Nexus exists as a centralization point for the code that you depend on every day. No matter what type your language, you're very likely to depend on code from other people, and they are likely to depend on your code.
But what if your language isn't a perfect fit for a repository manager? What if your language doesn't really understand artifacts as described by repository management? What if your repository is a source code control system?
The underlying principles of artifact management apply to all non-trivial software. In this talk, we'll walk through some of the ways that you can use artifact management in your projects, even when your language has trouble with the concept.
Blue Collar Knowledge Work
Across the last 50 or so years, technological advances have rapidly propelled the value of knowledge work over various forms of manual labor. This differentiation has classically been the blue-collar/white-collar divide. But as automation increases and manual labor requirements drop as a result, the dividing ling shifts. What used to be called knowledge-working jobs are rapidly becoming forms of "manual" knowledge work. Assembling software, running operations, and monitoring systems are so automated at the top and so complicated underneath that the skills for doing them can be seen as a form of manual labor. This session will discuss this transition and possible effects and outcomes.
The Delicate Balance Between Tools, People, and Process
Modern software is composed of many, many parts. At a level of high granularity, we can divide these into tools, people, and processes. A clear focus on tools has made its way through many organizations, often with good reason. However, it cannot be ignored that the best tooling won't help you deal with a bad process, a bad application, or bad culture.
Today, I will criticize how software appears to be produced and point to some places where we can improve.
Mykel Alvis
We're just trying to get better at this.
Birmingham, Alabama, United States
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