Architecture

Post Hype Agents This document defines a pragmatic, engineering-first approach to “Agentic” architectures, aligning them with the rigorous standards of the DBJ Method as established at DBJ.ORG. To move beyond current industry hysteria, we define the “Agent” not as an autonomous entity, but as a Policy-Controlled, Deterministic-Adjacent Task Handler. 1. Core Architectural Principles The Agent is a Consumer: Agents are treated as standard microservices. They pull from event streams (e.g., SQS) and execute strictly defined calls to backend APIs. Semantic Adaptation: The LLM is strictly used as a semantic bridge—translating unstructured input (text, legacy formats) into structured data—not as a substitute for business logic. Determinism First: All logic remains in compiled, testable code. The LLM handles the “intent parsing,” while the DBJ Method dictates the “transactional execution.” 2. Governance and Safety (The “Kill Switch” Model) Following the principles of identity-centric security, an Agent is a first-class identity entity: ...

Why they fit mainframes: Natural migration path — mainframe applications are already monolithic; modularizing in-place is less disruptive than immediate distribution Transaction boundaries — mainframes excel at ACID transactions within single processes; modular monoliths preserve this strength Reduced network overhead — avoids the latency and complexity of distributed calls that kill mainframe performance economics MIPS efficiency — in-process module calls consume far fewer MIPS than network hops or message queues The Evolution Path Legacy Monolith → Modular Monolith → Selective Distribution Start: Define bounded contexts within existing codebase Refactor: Extract modules with clear interfaces Stabilize: Prove the architecture, reduce technical debt Optionally: Extract specific modules to containers/services only where distribution adds value MIPS Impact Modular monoliths let you optimize hot paths and reduce coupling before adding distributed system overhead — often achieving 30–60% MIPS reduction without leaving the mainframe. ...

The Paper Everyone Forgot — Almost Tony Hoare published “Record Handling” in 1966. Before Simula 67. Before Smalltalk. Before anyone had coined the term object-oriented programming. He wasn’t thinking about objects sending messages to each other. He was thinking about something much simpler: data with a type tag, and code that switches on that tag. What He Actually Proposed You have a record. The record knows what it is — it carries a tag. You have a dispatch function that looks at the tag and calls the right handler. The handler takes storage and params. That’s it. ...