Thomas Betts

2 weeks ago | infoq.com | Thomas Betts |Sarah Wells |Eran Stiller |Daniel Bryant

As large language models (LLMs) have become widely adopted, AI-related innovation is now focusing on finely-tuned small language models and agentic AI. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is being adopted as a common technique to improve the results from LLMs. Architects are designing systems so they can more easily accommodate RAG. Architects need to consider AI-assisted development tools, making sure they increase efficiency without decreasing quality.

2 weeks ago | infoq.com | Thomas Betts |Eran Stiller |Daniel Bryant |Sarah Wells

The panel discussion in this episode is one half of the annual InfoQ Architecture and Design Trends Report. The other half is the written report. One of the regular features of InfoQ are the trends reports, which each focus on a different aspect of software development. These reports provide the InfoQ readers with a high-level overview of the topics to pay attention to this year, and also help the editorial team focus on innovative technologies across all the content on InfoQ.

3 weeks ago | infoq.com | Thomas Betts

At the Explore DDD conference in Denver, Colorado, Diana Montalion said software architecture is about designing for knowledge flow, with the goal of software teams learning more about the system they are building. Knowledge flow contrasts with the common focus on knowledge stock, which is about information that is already known. She sees effective architects as librarians, helping disseminate knowledge.

2 months ago | infoq.com | Pierre Pureur |Kurt Bittner |Thomas Betts

Selling yourself and your stakeholders on doing architectural experiments is hard, despite the significant benefits of this approach; you like to think that your decisions are good but when it comes to architecture, you don’t know what you don’t know. Stakeholders don’t like to spend money on things they see as superfluous, and they usually see running experiments as simply "playing around".

2 months ago | infoq.com | Andrew Harmel-Law |Thomas Betts

In this episode, Thomas Betts speaks with Andrew Harmel-Law about his new book, Facilitating Software Architecture: Empowering Teams to Make Architectural Decisions. The conversation includes a discussion of what constitutes an architecturally significant decision, how the practice of architecture is evolving, and how architects have a role to facilitate software architecture, rather than being the only ones making architectural decisions.