Interview with Mark Richards: GSAS 2023 Insights
Tags: architecture
Published: 2024-03-04 15:57:04

---
title: Interview with Mark Richards: GSAS 2023 Insights
published: true
date: 2024-01-29 08:14:02 UTC
tags: Softwarearchitecture
canonical_url: https://apiumhub.com/tech-blog-barcelona/interview-with-mark-richards-gsas/
---

We had an interview with Mark Richards at GSAS 2023!

If you are in the software development industry, you have probably heard of Mark Richards. Mark Richards is an experienced, hands-on software architect involved in the architecture, design, and implementation of microservices architectures, service-oriented architectures, and distributed systems and also the founder of developertoarchitect.com. 

Mark Richards is the author of numerous technical books and videos from O’Reilly, including several books on Microservices, the Software Architecture Fundamentals video series, Enterprise Messaging video series, Java Message Service, 2nd Edition, and a contributing author to 97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know. 

Last year in October, Mark participated at the [Global Software Architecture Summit](https://gsas.io/), an event organized by [Apiumhub](https://apiumhub.com/), as a speaker to present his talk “[Effective Microservices: Lessons Learned](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxHBcjv-Eac)” and his workshop “Building Distributed Systems using Transactional Sagas” together with Neal Ford.

Apiumhub had the opportunity to have an interview with Mark Richards between breaks to learn more about him, his interests, and the topics he would like to learn next year. Keep reading to learn more about this interview with Mark Richards!

## Interview with Mark Richards

### What are your thoughts on this year’s Global Software Architecture Summit?

It just keeps getting better! I love the current theme of this edition which is to leverage modern practices in software architecture to become more effective, more efficient, but most importantly to enjoy what we do. I love that theme, this is a chance to bring architects and developers together to be able to talk about software architecture. 

This is my third year speaking at the Global Software Architecture Summit, and I love seeing the energy and the growth. The attendees are fantastic, as well as the speakers. So far, it has been a fantastic experience!

### What are the current essential practices in software architecture for this year?

This year, some of the current essential practices in software architecture include a lot of different dimensions. The first is those measurements and fitness functions, being able to validate our architectures to know that when we make changes that are not impacting the structural integrity of those systems. Also, the use of architecture decision records (ADRS) which has come up quite a bit in this year’s conference. This is an essential practice not only for communication but also for forms of collaboration and great forms of very brief documentation.

I think another essential practice that has also come out this year in the conference is that of collaboration, avoiding that ivory architect antipattern and learning as an architect how to collaborate more with developers and also business stakeholders. These are a few of the handful of essential practices in software architecture this year. 

### Which area of software architecture are you interested in exploring in the upcoming year?

Next year, I’m interested in exploring areas of trying to control architecture flexibility and that change. A Residuality Theory is currently on my mind and something I intend on doing a lot of exploration on in the coming years, so if you aren’t familiar with Residuality Theory and its application to software architecture, you can certainly Google that. I am also very fascinated with, of course, the typical response which is the use of arch AI within software architecture and how can we leverage this to help validate a software architecture and maybe also find certain patterns and anti-patterns as well. These are just a few of the things that I’m anxious to embark on next year in software architecture.

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Interested in watching more videos from GSAS speakers like this interview with Mark Richards? Visit our [YouTube channel.](https://www.youtube.com/@Apiumhub/videos)

### GSAS 2024: Call for papers

Good news! Apiumhub is already organizing the fourth edition of [GSAS](https://gsas.io/). This year, the event will take place on October 14-16 at the Axa Auditorium in Barcelona and will focus on AI in software architecture, a topic that´s gaining a lot of attention. Many industry leaders have already confirmed their participation as speakers including Mark Richards, Neal Ford, Eoin Woods, Vlad Khononov, Luca Mezzalira, Andrew Harmel-Law, and Christian Ciceri.

Are you interested in becoming part of GSAS? The call for papers is already open! You may submit three types of proposals: talk, workshop, or open space. Feel free to submit your proposal [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf2PeISgsRvU1G3Q0zOAsxlGqO017lpK_Dp0EO-k0xsAYijlg/viewform). We are looking forward to hearing from you!