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Dominic Burford - Professional Profile



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I am a professional software engineer and technical architect with over twenty years commercial development experience with a strong focus on the design and development of web and mobile applications.

I have experience of architecting scalable, distributed, high volume web applications that are accessible from multiple devices due to their responsive web design, including architecting enterprise service-oriented solutions. I have also developed enterprise mobile applications using Xamarin and Telerik Platform.

I have extensive experience using .NET, ASP.NET, Windows and Web Services, WCF, SQL Server, LINQ and other Microsoft technologies. I am also familiar with HTML, Bootstrap, Javascript (inc. JQuery and Node.js), CSS, XML, JSON, Apache Cordova, KendoUI and many other web and mobile related technologies.

I am enthusiastic about Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery and Application Life-cycle Management having configured such environments using CruiseControl.NET, TeamCity and Team Foundation Services. I enjoy working in Agile and Test Driven Development (TDD) environments.

Outside of work I have two beautiful daughters. I am also an avid cyclist who enjoys reading, listening to music and travelling.

 

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GeneralCreating Generic RESTful API Services Pin
Dominic Burford20-Oct-17 5:01
professionalDominic Burford20-Oct-17 5:01 
GeneralIs your software team a democracy or a dictatorship? Pin
Dominic Burford16-Oct-17 21:44
professionalDominic Burford16-Oct-17 21:44 
GeneralSimplifying updating data Pin
Dominic Burford21-Sep-17 22:46
professionalDominic Burford21-Sep-17 22:46 
GeneralWhen 100% code coverage is not always enough Pin
Dominic Burford21-Jul-17 5:11
professionalDominic Burford21-Jul-17 5:11 
GeneralThat's the app in the app stores Pin
Dominic Burford18-Jul-17 5:00
professionalDominic Burford18-Jul-17 5:00 
GeneralDefensive Programming Pin
Dominic Burford28-Jun-17 7:23
professionalDominic Burford28-Jun-17 7:23 
GeneralMy first year - How time flies Pin
Dominic Burford19-Jun-17 1:40
professionalDominic Burford19-Jun-17 1:40 
GeneralShould software architects write code? Pin
Dominic Burford16-Jun-17 4:22
professionalDominic Burford16-Jun-17 4:22 
I was recently reading an article on this subject which included feedback from other software architects. What was interesting was the lack of consensus on the topic. There were quite a few strong opinions raised on both sides of the discussion.

As a professional software architect, should you also write code? The argument goes, that if you aren't writing code, you become increasingly detached from the applications you are designing and architecting. This leads to the Architecture Astronaut[^] which was first coined by Joel Spolsky back in 2001. The Architecture Astronaut constantly tries to think in higher and higher (and increasingly less relevant) abstractions. The end result is that the role performed by those particular architects is redundant.

The counter argument is that by continuing to write code, you keep your development skills up-to-date and therefore maintain a greater degree of relevance. After all, to be a good software architect, you also need to know how to implement good software systems right?

I must say I'm quite divided on the subject. I definitely agree that as a software architect there is definitely merit to be gained from continuing to hone your development skills and ensure that these are kept up-to-date. However, is it necessary to write production code to do this? Keeping your skills relevant and up-to-date is one thing, but shipping production strength code is another.

A software architect doesn't write code in the same quantity as the software developer. This should be fairly obvious. If your primary function within the organisation is software architect, then you will naturally spend most of your time on architecture related activities. If your primary function is software developer, then you will spend most of your time on development related activities.

So it should come as no surprise that the software architect who specialises in architecture, should be better at architecture than they are as a developer. And conversely, the software developer should be better at development than they are at architecture.

So I would conclude that a software architect should most definitely keep their development skills relevant and current, but that this shouldn't necessarily involve writing code that is going to ship to a paying customer(s). I'm sure there are many less critical applications (such as internal applications) that would allow the software architect to keep their skills current, without compromising the quality and integrity of customer facing applications.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare

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GeneralEnsuring your data is safe with Azure SQL Database Pin
Dominic Burford2-Jun-17 2:24
professionalDominic Burford2-Jun-17 2:24 
GeneralWhat makes a Senior Software Engineer? Pin
Dominic Burford30-May-17 21:53
professionalDominic Burford30-May-17 21:53 
GeneralMore Software Interview Skills 101 Pin
Dominic Burford25-May-17 6:03
professionalDominic Burford25-May-17 6:03 
GeneralSoftware Interview Skills 101 Pin
Dominic Burford12-May-17 5:44
professionalDominic Burford12-May-17 5:44 
GeneralBeat the Thrashing Pin
Dominic Burford5-May-17 6:03
professionalDominic Burford5-May-17 6:03 
GeneralWorking with Azure Blob Storage Pin
Dominic Burford27-Apr-17 2:29
professionalDominic Burford27-Apr-17 2:29 
GeneralWrestling with Apple Pin
Dominic Burford20-Apr-17 3:37
professionalDominic Burford20-Apr-17 3:37 
GeneralTwo unit tests, zero integration tests Pin
Dominic Burford10-Apr-17 22:39
professionalDominic Burford10-Apr-17 22:39 
GeneralThe Mediocre Mindset Pin
Dominic Burford29-Mar-17 1:10
professionalDominic Burford29-Mar-17 1:10 
GeneralHow much code coverage is enough? Pin
Dominic Burford21-Mar-17 5:14
professionalDominic Burford21-Mar-17 5:14 
GeneralThe Mythical Full Stack Developer Pin
Dominic Burford14-Mar-17 3:18
professionalDominic Burford14-Mar-17 3:18 
GeneralCreating your own private NuGet server Pin
Dominic Burford2-Mar-17 0:36
professionalDominic Burford2-Mar-17 0:36 
GeneralConsuming a dependency using NuGet Pin
Dominic Burford28-Feb-17 6:05
professionalDominic Burford28-Feb-17 6:05 
GeneralCoding Standards Pin
Dominic Burford24-Feb-17 6:02
professionalDominic Burford24-Feb-17 6:02 
GeneralSoftware Architecture Challenges Pin
Dominic Burford17-Feb-17 1:31
professionalDominic Burford17-Feb-17 1:31 
GeneralGetting the Most Out of Your Unit Tests Pin
Dominic Burford9-Feb-17 9:21
professionalDominic Burford9-Feb-17 9:21 
GeneralBuilding a strong development team Pin
Dominic Burford8-Feb-17 6:31
professionalDominic Burford8-Feb-17 6:31 

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