GOTO is a vendor independent international software development conference with more that 90 top speaker and 1300 attendees. The conference cover topics such as .Net, Java, Open Source, Agile, Architecture and Design, Web, Cloud, New Languages and Processes

Presentation: "Legacy Evolution - The Innovation Opportunity"

Track: Legacy & Big Systems / Time: Wednesday 13:20 - 14:10 / Location: Administratiezaal

Legacy evolution remains a challenge as all approaches from full rewrites, outsourcing, SOA, and to Agile refactoring have proved disappointing at best. It is no surprise that most consider legacy and technical debt synonyms and legacy innovation an oxymoron. In this talk we describe an alternative lean approach to legacy evolution that focuses on high value tactical innovations that leverage new technologies and business practices.

We focus on legacy data and flow rather than legacy code which has been the primary focus for traditional legacy approaches. We illustrate common patterns for identifying high return opportunities and techniques for high payback. We discuss risk mitigation and management buy in for perceived high risk approaches.

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Dave Thomas, Father of OTI, CEO of Bedarra Corporation

Dave Thomas

Biography: Dave Thomas

Dave Thomas has a wide spectrum of experience in the software industry as an engineer, professor, consultant, architect, executive and investor. Dave is founder and CEO of Bedarra Corporation; which provides virtual CTO and CEO, business mentoring and seed investment to emerging companies. Recently formed Bedarra Research Labs undertakes speculative research on applications of emerging software technologies.

Dave is best known as the founder and past CEO and president ofObject Technology International Inc. (formerly OTI, now IBM OTI Labs)and led the commercial introduction of object and component technology.The company is often cited as the ideal model of a software technologycompany.

He was also the principal visionary and architect for IBM VisualAgeSmalltalk and Java tools and virtual machines including the initialwork on popular multi-language Eclipse.org IDE. OTI pioneered the useof virtual machines in embedded systems with Tektronix shipping thefirst commercial products in 1988. He was instrumental in theestablishment of IBM's Pervasive computing efforts and in particularthe Java tooling.

Dave is an adjunct research professor at Carleton University, and the University Of Queensland and is widely published in the software engineering literature. He is a popular humorous albeit opinionated keynote speaker. Dave remains active in various roles within the technical community including ECOOP, AOSD, Evolve, and Agile Development Conference, Agile/XP Universe and OOPSLA Onward. He is a founding director of the Agile Alliance and most recently a founder of Open Augment Consortium. Dave writes expert columns in Otland Online in Germany, and the Journal Of Object Technology in Switzerland where he also serves on the editorial board.

Twitter: @daveathomas

Personal website:
davethomas.net
eclipse.org
agilealliance.org