22 August 2026

47 new posts across 9 practice and leadership sources — 5 worth your time.

One week of Craft & Leadership, 5 stories, as published.

Presentation: Understanding Progressive Collapse: How To Avoid A Cascading Failure

Sam Newman applies civil engineering's concept of progressive collapse to distributed software systems. He outlines strategies to prevent cascading failures, such as strengthening individual components, isolating failures, and reducing interconnections.

Why it matters — Preventing cascading failures in distributed systems by applying structural engineering principles like component isolation and reducing system interconnections.

InfoQ Architecture · 22 August 2026 · Read the original →

Architecture

Article: Comprehension as an Architectural Characteristic: A System That Is Not Understood Cannot Evolve Safely

This article argues that human comprehension must be treated as an essential architectural characteristic to combat the cognitive debt and decay of system understanding caused by AI-generated code. It proposes socio-technical metrics and design checkpoints to preserve system intent.

Why it matters — Treating human system comprehension as a measurable architectural metric to prevent cognitive debt when integrating AI-generated code.

InfoQ Culture · 22 August 2026 · Read the original →

Practice

Citizens Build, Agents Execute, Experts Govern

Explores the growing gap between building simple weekend applications with AI and engineering robust enterprise software, emphasizing the need for expert governance as non-technical users build apps.

Why it matters — The necessity of expert architectural governance to manage the complexity of enterprise software built by non-technical users and AI agents.

Martin Fowler · 22 August 2026 · Read the original →

Practice

Landing the plane

Discusses the discipline required to finish projects rather than just starting them, highlighting the contrast between the initial excitement of a project and the hard work of final delivery.

Why it matters — The organizational discipline required to transition from the high-energy kickoff phase to the high-friction completion phase of software delivery.

The Engineering Manager · 22 August 2026 · Read the original →

Careers

The Promotion Paradox

Explores the challenges when a top engineer is promoted to interim manager, covering delegation, 1-on-1s, and the critical question of whether they actually want the management path.

Why it matters — Navigating the transition from individual contributor to interim manager by focusing on delegation and career alignment.

Rands in Repose · 22 August 2026 · Read the original →

Still trying to promote our way out of systems we don't understand.

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