Professional Bio

I am an industry analyst at Burton Group. For 15 years, I worked in the trenches on real software projects. I believe software development is an amazing profession. I take a keen interest in design, architecture, application development platforms, agile development, and the IT industry in general, especially as it relates to software development. I also enjoy experimenting with new technology, whether it be the the cool new framework or tethering my smartphone to my Mac via Bluetooth to get an internet connection.

In 2002, I wrote the book Java Design: Objects, UML, and Process, published by Addison-Wesley. I have also written numerous whitepapers and articles, including The Agile Developer column for The Agile Journal. I am also the founder of Extensible Java, a growing resource of component design pattern heuristics for Java that can easily be applied to most other platforms, including .Net. I created the open source utilities JarAnalyzer and AssAnalyzer which help teams manage the dependencies between Java .jar files and .Net assemblies, respectively. I have trained thousands of software professionals, teaching courses on UML, Java J2EE technology, object-oriented development, component based development, software architecture, and software process. I am trapped in a software developer’s body, and to this day I continue to enjoy hacking in a variety of languages, including Java, .Net, Ruby, and PHP.

Kirk enjoys spending time with his family, exploring the outdoors, and participating in sporting activities.

Send Kirk an e-mail (remove the _filter).

Past Speaking Engagements

March 23, 2007 - SD West 2007. Sessions: From Code to Architecture, Benefits of the Build.
September 12, 2006 - SD Best Practices.
July 19, 2006 - Dr. Dobb's Architecture and Design World.
May 24, 2006 - ALM Expo. Session: Dependency Management Techniques.
May 21, 2006 - Central Ohio Software Symposium. Sessions: From Code to Architecture, Dependency Management, GOF Patterns Applied, and Benefits of the Build.
March 19, 2006 - Twin Cities Software Symposium. Sessions: From Code to Architecture, Dependency Management, GOF Patterns Applied, and Benefits of the Build.
February 24 - 26, 2006 - Greater Wisconsin Software Symposium. Sessions: From Code To Architecture and Dependency Management Techniques.
Nov. 21, 2005. Fox Valley JUG. Session: From Code to Architecture.
Sept. 26 - 29, 2005. Software Development Best Practices. Sessions: GOF Patterns Applied and From Code to Architecture.
Oct. 1 - 3, 2004. Great Lakes Software Symposium. Sessions: GOF Patterns in Java, Great POJO Components - Physical Design, and Great POJO Classes - Logical Design.
Sept. 20 - 23, 2004. Software Development Best Practices. Sessions: GOF Patterns in Java and Continuous Integration.
August 27 - 29, 2004. Central Ohio Java Software Symposium. Sessions: GOF Patterns in Java, Great POJO Components - Physical Design, and Great POJO Classes - Logical Design
April 16 - 18, 2004. Wisconsin Java Software Symposium. Sessions: GOF Patterns in Java, Failure of Objects, and Continuous Integration
March 14 - 19, 2004. SD West 2004. Sessions: GOF Patterns in Java and Continuous Integration.
April, 2003. Wisconsin Java Software Symposium. Session: Failure of Objects.