Vlad Khononov

That book was written in 2014. Today, of course, you can ask an LLM to generate questions. But unless you ask it explicitly, it’ll jump into writing code… basing its design decisions on a gazillion implicit assumptions.

One of my favorite books, A More Beautiful Question, draws a clear distinction between us, humans, and computers: computers are great at providing answers, but our strength lies in asking good questions. Questioning everything is a proven way to combat complacency and avoid its dangerous outcomes.

In the Chaotic domain, you need to act, trust your gut instincts, and only once out of danger, try to make sense of what happened.

Blinded by complacency, you may treat a task as trivial. Initially, it even looks that way. Later on, however, things can take an unexpected turn—for example, when a seemingly innocent change wreaks havoc in production. At that point, you can no longer afford knowledge-based responses.

🧵 Task Estimations🧠, Liminal Cynefin⚠️, and AI🤖

•Trivial – 1h
•Straightforward – 3h
•Should be fine – 6h
•No idea tbh – 12h
•Utter disaster – 36h
•Looks trivial… – 100h+

Chuckles aside, the joke illustrates a key concept in Liminal Cynefin. Specifically, its most dangerous transition: Clear→Chaotic

Ordering, Grouping and Consistency in Messaging systems We went quite far from our Queue Broker series in recent editions, but today, we’re back to it! By powers combined, I joined our Queue Broker implementation to solve the generic idempotency check guar...

I was looking at @oskardudycz.bsky.social post on ordering & consistency and saw this part:

> Imagine a bank processes a withdrawal before a deposit. A user with a $0 balance may see a failed transaction, even though funds were deposited seconds earlier.

www.architecture-weekly.com/i/151818131/...

Balancing Coupling in Software Design with Vlad Khononov In this episode, Thomas Betts speaks with Vlad Khononov about balancing coupling in software design, the subject of his recent book. They discuss how coupling is necessary for a system to function, but has to be balanced to allow the system to evolve. Vlad identifies three factors that can be used to measure coupling: knowledge sharing, distance, and volatility.

Five years later, Balanced Coupling is back on @infoq.com , now in podcast form. I had a great conversation with @thomasbetts.bsky.social about modularity and complexity — two topics that are, well… coupled by coupling 🙂

Check it out here 👉 www.infoq.com/podcasts/bal...

Balanced Coupling returns to @infoq.com🎙️

Back in early 2020, I presented the first version of the Balanced Coupling model at DDD Europe. The late Jan Stenberg — who is dearly missed — saw its potential and wrote about the talk on InfoQ.

What can Formula 1 teach us about software modeling and Domain-Driven Design? 🏎️ 💥💻
New blog: vladikk.com/2025/04/05/f...

Interview with Vlad Khononov In this interview, he shares the defining moments that shaped his architectural thinking, including hard-learned lessons from the microservices hype, the influence of Eliyahu Goldratt’s Theory of Cons...

If you’re curious about the defining moment in my early career, or what inspires me most as an architect, check it out:

deararchitects.xyz/interviews/i...

🚀 My interview for Dear Architects is live.
Luca Mezzalira didn’t hold back — this one goes deep. The questions called for some serious introspection and took time to unpack.

🎙️ New podcast alert! I’ve been listening to Software Engineering Radio for nearly 20 years, so it was a real honor to be featured on this amazing show. Loved chatting with Jeff Doolittle about stuff we both care deeply about 🙂

AI, AI, AI—everybody is only talking about AI these days. So here’s my two cents:
vladikk.com/2025/03/30/g...

"adding a feature shouldn’t feel like defusing a bomb" is a tagline that definitely speaks to me

P.S. Huge thanks to all the accidental beta testers who stumbled onto the site while it was still under construction 👷‍♂️👷‍♀️

🚀 This message has been approved by the DDD 🐒: coupling dot dev is live!
🔍 Discover the fundamentals of the Balanced Coupling model, its dimensions, and how it works with other popular models and methodologies.
🔁 Please repost to help spread the word!

Hi Yevhenii 👋
That was the question about using the model to evaluate uncertainty when making estimates

What a great interview that was! I remember one of Sheen's questions totally derailed me—I couldn’t stop thinking, why on earth hadn’t I thought about that when writing the book???

🚨 Google analytics tell me that some of you have already discovered the new Balanced Coupling site 👀
First, wow, you’re amazing 🤩 Second, it’s still in beta, so please don’t judge me by the 404s and typos 😅
Thanks for checking it out so early, and stay tuned 🙌

👇🏼 Last call for Complexity & Modularity online later today, with Sonya Natanzon and @vladikk.bsky.social 👋🏻 I'll be hosting, see you there!
*don't forget to fill in the short registration form beforehand to get the event link*

😻😻😻

My cat sitting next to a book titled "Balancing coupling in software design"

Someone stole my new book.
Might be good for her, I always thought her software design skills were a bit low.

Just finished @vladikk.bsky.social's "Balancing Coupling in Software Design". Great book. Describing "modules" as composable, hierarchical and fractal boundaries was the biggest insight for me, helped me build a better mental model of the design issues I'm trying to address.

Yay! Thank you so much for the kind words, Barry! So happy to hear that you liked the book 😊

That’s a proper Christmas tree 😊

Reading under the Christmas tree #softwaredesign #coupling

Yay! One more book made its way! Thanks so much for sharing and have a great 2025, Maarten! I hope the balanced coupling model will be valuable and useful for you :)

Most relevant IT books 2024, IMHO:
📕 "Architecture Modernization"
📗 "Balancing Coupling in Software Design"
📘 "Collaborative Software Design"
📙 "Learning Systems Thinking"
Thank you 🙏

@nick-tune.me
@vladikk.bsky.social
@selketjah.bsky.social
@kenny.weave-it.org
@mentrix.bsky.social
et al.

Balancing Coupling in Software Design: Universal Design Principles for Architecting Modular Software Systems By Vlad Khononov

It took centuries to be delivered to Turkey, but I finally got my copy. Really exited. @vladikk.bsky.social

Yay! Happy that eventually it got delivered :) Thanks so much for sharing, Mehmet! Hope the book and the balanced coupling model will prove valuable and useful to you!