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• Reactive Manifesto
  • Very clearly describes and explains how a well-crafted message-driven (event-passing) system architecture can lend itself to a highly Responsive, Resilient, and Elastic system.
  • edX experiences in following this manifesto have thus far yielded good results.
     
• Self-contained Systems
  • Building on top of the design principles of the Reactive Manifesto, SCS takes a more extreme standpoint and encourages entirely autonomous, highly decoupled, self-contained services that contain their own UI, business logic, and data storage, with only asynchronous communications between SCS'.
  • The slides at the top of their page provide great visuals of these concepts.
    
    
• Thinking in Systems 
  • A superb book on systems thinking, including key concepts such stocks, flows, and feedback loops.
  • It will likely change the way you look at the world around you, whether it be climate change or organizational dynamics or system architecture.

Coding Best Practices

• Clean Code, by Robert Martin (Uncle Bob)
  • Good perspective on coding best practices - though some may have differing thoughts on some recommendations.
  • Book club notes captured at Clean Code.
• A Philosophy of Software Design, by John Osterhaut
  • Relatively easy to read, given its structure of short sections. Covers concepts of information hiding, controlling complexity, and naming.

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• Atomic Design, by Brad Frost
  • 1st half provides a ubiquitous language for reusable frontend components: Atoms, Molecules, Organisms, Templates, and Pages.
  • 2nd half speaks to the challenges and importance of alignment throughout the organization on developing, using, and maintaining a Design System.
• https://micro-frontends.org/
  • This is the resource that Nimisha used when she introduced micro-frontends as an architectural pattern at edX.
• Building Micro-Frontends, by Luca Mezzalira
  • Luca was an invited guest at Arch Hour: Arch Tea with Luca Mezzalira (Pre-Work) - 2020-07-09
  • His book covers both architecture theory and tactical best practices for implementing MFEs.

Soft Skills

• Non-violent Communication: A Language of Life, by Marshall Rosenberg
  • "If we change ourselves, we can change the world and changing ourselves begins with changing our language and methods of communication." - Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi
  • Part 1 provides a structured method for communication: Observation, Feeling, Need, Request
  • Part 2 describes empathic listening, which can be transformative in any relationship. Simply paraphrasing and echoing what you hear enables compassionate communication.
• Change Management
  
  • ADKAR - technique to help individuals transition through changes
  • Kotter's 8 steps - framework for large-scale changes
  • SCARF: a brain-based model for collaborating with and influencing others - neuroscience-backed understanding of our need to move away from perceived threats and toward perceived rewards.

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