Notes from a recent tour to the Software Manufactory of the Grand Duchy of Conway

I recently returned from the land of Conway, where I stayed as a guest of the Grand Duke, the Lord of that Realm.

The Grand Duke knows that in Software is the Future of Commerce and Adventure, and so has established a Manufactory for the conjuring of a Software. Although I am a simple Hacker and cannot possibly pretend to fathom neither the grand tapestry nor the finer tinctures of the workings of the Manufactory, I will in spite of all better Advice and Instinct give this feeble attempt at a record of what I there saw and heard, but esteemed Reader be warned, that I will without a doubt fail in creating any veracious summation of the proper Nature of the Software Enterprise.

In brief, the Grand Duke's Software is an essence that transmutes Ledgers of Time into Chronicles of T.P.S., in the ancient script of Jason, and the Grand Duke has encoded this Software in his portable Computing-Machine, and he is much in favor on all Cocktail-Parties and Village Fairs where-ever he travels, basking in the Radiance of his Computing-Machine with its Software, blinking its lights, beeping its beeps, to the jealousy, fear and awe of Princes, Popes and Emperors.

But the Grand Duke is a learned man, and is the Friend of clergy of all faiths far and near, and he knows that the way to do a Software is to embroid it into Modules, just as his subjects are born into Modules by the divine order, and like farmers, preachers and freemen, so is Software divided into a Peasant Interface, a Census Book, a Bullion Vault, and many more Modules, and neither can be put to Work without the others, because together they form a whole, in Software just like in the Grand Duke's worldly Realm, and by this device, all the Grand Duke's subjects can partake in creation of Working Software.

And Enterprise Software is by its Nature too brilliant to be contained in one single Machine, because the multitude of Modules would most surely exert the capacity of any human Operator, be he a Grand Duke or not, so the Grand Duke's portable Computing-Machine – the fear and awe of Princes and Emperors – can not work without a dozen other machines in the Grand Duke's employ, each one of these in communion with the Grand Duke's Computing-Machine by way of a Sacred Oath and the internet Network. Each one of these machines is in the ward of a Baron, who has the duty of inscribing the Software onto it and ensuring that the machine operates without relent by way of Electric Force. And like the limbs in the Body of the Grand Duke each perform one the Grand Duke's glorious Fonctions, each of these Micro-Services, as they are known in the Grand Duchy of Conway, each one has a Subdomain, or a Responsibility, for example entertaining peasants, taking taxes from peasants, making peasants work faster, making more peasants, and so on. And they do it with the utmost excellence.

To preserve order in the land, and to prevent corruption of the Estate, it is forbidden, by penalty of banishment, to commune by Network, or to establish any Oath, neither by remote procedure call nor by message bus, directly inbetween one Barony-Micro-Service and another one, since in simile to how all truth emanates from the providence of God Almighty, and all business requirements emanate from the wishes of the Grand Duke, all Integration must flow through the Computing Machine of the Grand Duke, and the Computing Machine of the Grand Duke shall act as message bus or remote procedure call endpoint for all his Barons' Jason scripts.

Now, as the crafty Reader mayhaps have understood already, not all days are golden in the land of Conway, for it can so happen that a Micro-Service can fail in its duties because its Responsibilities become too many, or too heavy, for example when a new type of legume, the Potato, arrives from the Colonies, the Manufactory must speedily afford to the changing requirements, lest the Grand Duke's Domain quickly be overtaken by competition from neighboring Barbarians. The Taxation Micro-Service, having previously only enumerated Turnips, now must enumerate all the Grand Duke's Turnips in concurrence with enumeration of his Potatos, and the duress on a simple Computing-Machine, which is after all a man-made contraption, albeit crafted by the most nimble of Artisans, the workload can cause too much a stress on it.

Thus the Grand Duke in his most adequate wisdom has decreed that each Baron shall have the mandate to commend of a number of Knights, each for whom the I.T. guild will provision a Computing-Machine of their own, each Knight inscribing onto their Computing-Machine a Micro-Service of his own, each carrying out a certain duty all according to the divine Principle of Single Responsibility and by way of Sacred Oath to his Baron's Micro-Service. And now one of these Knightly Micro-Services can be commanded to give its full attention to the Potatos being counted in full so that no peasant stealths away any Potato for his children.

Most cunningly, the Law of Conway also commands that a Knightly Micro-Service shall only integrate with its suzerain Barony-Micro-Service, thus preserving the order of the Domain and preventing corruption of Estate even among the lowliest spheres of the Manufactory. And there is no Coupling between the Knightly Micro-Services, and the totality of the Software has the perfect shape of a Tree of Knowledge.

As the earthly Bodies of Barons and Knights are but temporary vessels on this short journey towards the Heavenly, it is inevitable that the day will come when one of these Barons or Knights will no more be able to operate his Computing-Machine, or to change the Software in it, and on this sad day, he will be buried in hallow ground with his Computing-Machine beside him, and there shall be much solemnness. His technical debt shall be forgiven, and his eldest son will inherit his fief, according to Saxon law, and the I.T. guild will for the son provision a Computing-Machine, onto which he will, like his father before him, inscribe a Micro-Service that fulfills the Oath between his Computing-Machine and that of his Grand Duke or Baron.

Having learned of these wonderous things, I journeyed home with certainty for how this newfound Best Practice would surely guide the Magistrates of my homeland when they venture about to set up a Software Manufactory of their own.