Complexity is the silent killer of productivity in software development. An unnecessarily complex solution can result in an order of magnitude larger problem for system evolution, even to the point of bringing a solution's development to a halt as 'it has just become too complex to develop further'.

Event Driven Architectures are often associated with complexity (we even have 'Complex Event Processing' as a technique and toolset to manage this supposed complexity) but with the patterns and tools introduced in this talk Russ will attempt to show how this is not a case of intrinsic complexity but rather something we accidentally introduce and can avoid.

Using an implementation technology-agnostic approach, this talk will cover:

• What is architectural simplicity and why is it crucially important
• Tradeoffs of simplicity vs. complexity when buying flexibility.
• What to barter with, and what to avoid.
• How to think differently about your architecture, its integration challenges and its evolution over time using the Life Preserver pattern and tool.
• How to design simple events and domains.
• How to apply these patterns to your daily architectural decision-making processes.