Microservices and GenAI in 2026: my Dear Architects conversation

Earlier this year I was a guest on Luca Mezzalira’s Dear Architects podcast. We talked about where microservices are in 2026 and what GenAI changes. My take is that the best software development practices we had before GenAI - you could even say extreme programming - are even more necessary now, because of the nature of GenAI.

Here are the main points. The full conversation is on the episode:

We are still building big balls of mud

Painting with a very broad brush, I think far too many enterprises just muddle along and mostly build big balls of mud.

Software serves two constituencies

Software is an unusual kind of artifact. With most things, how you build one today does not affect how you build the next one. With software, the design decisions you make today affect how easy it is to make changes tomorrow.…