Merson on Agility with Microservice Programming at XP2021

Paulo Merson, Visiting Scientist at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and adjunct teaching faculty in the Institute for Software Research (ISR), Masters of Software Engineering (MSE) Programs, was a workshop keynote speaker at the XP 2021 conference in mid-June.

Considered the  premier Agile software development conference that combines research and practice, XP brings together Agile researchers, practitioners, thought leaders, coaches, and trainers to present and discuss recent innovation, research results, experiences, challenges, and trends.

Due to travel restrictions imposed by Covid-19 pandemic, the conference was held online for a second year. The organizers capitalized on the advantages of an online structure and endeavored to include a more diverse range of participants in this year's presenters and workshop contributors. 

The Research Workshops were envisioned as “forums for small group discussions to present and discuss results of scientific research and practice, and to explore innovative and cutting-edge topics” with an informal environment designed to be conducive to discussion and inquiry.

Paulo, along with Joe Yoder and Sam Newman, were invited to present at a Research Workshop on Agility with Microservice Programming (AMP). The aim of the AMP workshop was to collect experiences and studies on microservice architectures, report best practices as well as failure cases, and build a community knowledge base of documented errors and successes. Merson and Yoder gave a keynote presentation titled “Evolving Monolith to Microservices,” which is based on a paper [pdf] they published at the PLoP 2020 conference.  

As a developer for the Brazilian Federal Court Accounts, and faculty at both the MSE and the master program in Applied Computer at University of Brasilia, Merson is in the unique position of being both a practitioner and educator, bringing together his experience and research as it relates to agility and microservice programming.