aim42

aim42 is the systematic approach to improve software systems and architectures.

History

aim42 was founded in 2013 by Gernot Starke, joined by Stefan Tilkov in 2014. We initially presented our ideas and approach on the OOP conference 2014.

Our goal is a transparent and practical approach to systematic software improvement, relying on proven practices and patterns.

We estimate that a typical developer spends around 75% of her/his professional life maintaining, evolving, fixing or enhancing existing (legacy) systems.

Team

For a current and complete overview, please see the contributor page on GitHub.

  • Gernot Starke (INNOQ Fellow, project founder): setup, patterns, practices, maintenance.
  • Alex Heusingfeld: hero-of-the-build, CI integration, numerous discussions. Started the idea of a distinct user guide…
  • Peter Hruschka (Atlantic Systems Guild): reviews + comments, especially to the intricacies of the Domain Model.
  • Christine Koppelt (INNOQ): improvement-patterns
  • Michael Mahlberg (Consulting Guild): patterns and practices.
  • Burkhard Neppert (INNOQ): review, method
  • Roland Schimmack: review, practices and patterns, bugfixes
  • Oliver Tigges: patterns and practices
  • Stefan Tilkov (INNOQ): maintenance and evolution patterns.
  • Tammo van Lessen (INNOQ): improvement patterns, technical debt contribution
  • Sven Johann (INNOQ): several improvements on various patterns
  • Matthias Möser (Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Bayerns): improvement patterns, rewrite
  • (What are you waiting for? Join us!)

Comments and suggestions by Markus Harrer, Phillip Ghadir and numerous (anonymous) project teams from all around the IT world.

Found a bug?

Of course, we welcome contributions, both pull requests and issues!

About Gernot

As INNOQ Fellow and software- and architecture practitioner I support organizations of various domains in improving their software.

Apart from optimizing time-to-market, I focus on reducing maintenance- and operational costs, facilitating team collaboration and development efficiency.

I help to effectively and efficiently architect and develop new IT systems and bring them into production.

After graduating in computer science at Aachen University of Technology and a few years of practical experience, I wrote my PhD thesis on software engineering (at J.Kepler University in Linz, Austria, with Prof. Chroust). People call me practical and pragmatic methodologist - with geek genes…

I’ve published a number of technical books, mostly on software architecture, patterns, development processes and software documentation.

In 2005 I (co-)founded and still actively maintain arc42, the free portal for software architecture and documentation, together with its international companion arc42.org.

In 2014 I founded aim42, the „Architecture Improvement Method“ (aim42.org).

I’m founding member of iSAQB, currently in the position of working group lead for the CPSA-Foundation Level. I successfully trained literally thousands of developers in software architecture topics.

Together with my wife Uli and our awesome kids we live in beautiful Cologne.

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