Maintainable

Robby has a chat with the VP of Engineering at ConvertKit, Amy Isikoff Newell. Amy starts off by talking about why perfection is the enemy of software development. There’s no engineer who likes admitting that there are messy bits in their code. They think the messy bits shouldn’t be there, but that's not possible. Amy feels that when it comes to the maintainability of software, it shouldn’t drive...

Robby was invited to join a panel of several hosts from podcasts at RailsConf 2022 in Portland, Oregon. In their conversation, they discuss podcasting, engaging with our listeners, the state of the Ruby and Rails communities, we also dug into some topics related to maintaining open source projects, opening doors for juniors into our industry and into open source, among other topics. This episode w...

Robby has a chat with Chelsea Troy, the Staff Software Engineer on machine learning and backend systems at Mozilla. Chelsea also maintains the Zooniverse Citizens Science mobile app, the NASA landslide data processing pipeline, and a few other open-source projects. She is a maintainer for the rock programming language and mentors formerly incarcerated technologists through Emergent Works. She teac...

Robby has a chat with Paula Paul, a distinguished engineer with Greyshore Associates, where she helps organizations adopt cloud-native technology and serves the community as an ABI Syster, diversity speaker, and mentor. Paula entered the workforce in the early ‘80s as a software engineer with IBM , where she shipped her first product on magnetic tape. She’s had roles in product development, engine...

Robby has a chat with Ben Halpern, the creator of Dev.to and a Co-Founder of Forem, a platform that Dev.to is based on. Ben shares from his experience, that well-maintained software needs to have a clear purpose and context that’s available as one is reading it and within the documentation as needed while also being flexible for future evolution. When it comes to dealing with the common challenge...

Robby has a candid conversation with Avdi Grimm, a software developer, consultant, coach, speaker, and author of the books, “Confident Ruby” and “Exceptional Ruby” He is also the creator and head gardener of Graceful. Dev . Avdi’s opinion on well-maintained software is that it’s more about teams than code and the fact that more attention need to be paid on documentation. He emphasizes the value of...

Robby has a chat with Aran Khanna, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Archera, a company that helps organizations find cloud solutions that fit their companies. Aran starts off by sharing that great functional decomposition, brevity, and simple but high coverage tests are, from his experience, the three common characteristics of well-maintained software. He then shares his wisdom on the importance of brev...

Robby has a chat with Jerod Santo, the Managing Editor and Partner of Changelog Media. Jerod helps lead and co-host Changelog’s flagship podcast, The Changelog, and builds all the cool stuff that makes Changelog awesome. Jerod shares his journey from being a typical networking engineer (Infosec) to the experienced programmer that he is today and his programming wisdom from the trenches. Tune in as...

Robby speaks with the Founder and CEO of Solo.io , Idit Levine about scenarios where rewrites are appropriate so that you can pivot your technology startup, why cleaning up technical debt early-and-often is vital, and fostering collaboration within your open source community. Additionally, Idit introduces us to tools such as Istio for managing your Service Mesh. Helpful Links Idit's Twitter Idit's...

Robby speaks with Emily Giurleo, Senior Software Developer and co-founder/organizaer of WNB.rb. In this episode, Emily shares the importance of software communicating its purpose, the differences between maintaining open source versus propritary software projects, and community building. Additionally, they discuss Emily's experience of being a paid maintainer of MongoDB's Ruby client library, the...

Robby speaks with Jean Yang, Founder and CEO of Akita Software. In this episode, Jean discusses why software needs to be more honest with itself, recruitment tactics at small startups, and why we should be careful before doing what the big organizations are doing, what developer influences advocate versus what real developers do day-to-day. Helpful Links Jean's Twitter Jean's LinkedIn Akita Softwa...

Robby speaks with Shaundai Person, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix and creator of TypeScript for JavaScript devs. Shaundai brought a treasure trove of insights, starting from her fascinating transition from sales to tech, straight into the heart of what makes code maintainable. She's a fan of making things simpler (think Legos, not knitted castles), and her take on the modular build of softwar...

Robby speaks with Chris Birchall, author of Re-Engineering Legacy Software and Lead Software Developer at 47 Degrees. They cover how to identify both dead and zombie code in your software, approaches to consciously taking on technical debt, and when rewrites might be appropriate. Helpful Links 47 Degrees Re-Engineering Legacy Software Follow Chris on Twitter Book Recommendation: Sherlock Holmes Se...

Robby speaks with Swizec Teller, Senior Software Engineer at Tia and author of Serverless for Frontend Engineers . In this conversation, Swizec shares his thoughts on how startups need to learn how to leverage technical debt effectively, an introduction to his book, and the traits of a Senior Engineer Mindset . Helpful Links Swizec on Twitter Swizec on LinkedIn Serverless for Frontend Engineers Th...

In this episode of Maintainable, Robby Russell chats with Heidi Waterhouse, Transformation Advocate at LaunchDarkly and contributor to " Docs for Developers ." Heidi shares her insights on the crucial role documentation plays in software maintenance, how to manage documentation debt, and why "the best diff is a red diff." Episode Highlights [00:00:53] Heidi's Take on Maintainable Software : Discus...

Robby speaks with David Heinemeier Hansson (aka DHH), Creator of Ruby on Rails and CTO of Basecamp / HEY. Disclaimer : Robby sat down with DHH in early March 2021 about ~5-6 weeks before Basecamp's policy changes were announced and the significant impact that had within our community. It's quite likely that some of Basecamp's internal software engineering processes have since changed. In an enthra...

Robby speaks with Matt Wynne, who is currently a co-lead of Cucumber Open and a BDD Advocate at SmartBear. They cover an introduction to Cucumber and how it fits into a software team's toolbox, the importance of reliable tests and speedy tests for quick feedback loops, and why teams struggle to introduce TDD into existing software applications. Helpful Links Cucumber Smartbear Gherkin Technical De...

Robby speaks with Tom Granot, Solution Engineer at Lightrun. They discuss producing content for technical (and non-technical) audiences, why consistency in your communication style matters, and the importance of good bug reporting and resolution. Helpful Links: [Book Recommendation] The Hacker's Diet by John Walker Follow Tom on Twitter Tom's website Lightrun Monica CRM Async http client Subscribe...

Robby speaks with Andrew Watkins, VP of Engineering at Buildops. They dig into what it means to be "easily testable", the downsides to being allured by new technology, and why rewrites are really, really tough. Helpful Links Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn Follow Buildops on LinkedIn [Book Recommendation] Heroes Die Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintaina...

Robby speaks with Rodney Cobb, Principal DevOps Engineer at Remine Inc. They discuss the three verticals of maintainable systems, the importance of mental health days, why all work needs to be visible and tracked, comparing DevOps to Hip Hop culture, and taking time to ask yourself, "when do I take the time to level up?" Helpful Links Rodney on LinkedIn Book Recommendation: Influence: The Psycholo...

Robby speaks with Dr. Michaela Greiler, Founder and Trainer at Awesome Code Review Workshops.  They discuss the importance of taking time to revisit past technical decisions, what is/isn't technical debt, as well as the distinction between protecting the quality of the code and expanding the knowledge of what is changing in a software codebase. Dr. Greiler also talks about some mistakes that engin...

Robby speaks with Mark Kilby, Distributed Agile Guide and Founder at K5 Labs. They discuss the benefits of healthy and reliable automated tests, symptoms of when things are not working, challenges that teams may face in different types of remote working scenarios, and what effective communication looks like amongst team members. Mark also gives advice on things to consider as an Agile coach and ho...

Robby speaks with Kevin Stewart, VP of Engineering at Harvest. They discuss fighting ideological battles, why time-to-deploy is one of the most valuable metrics to measure and improve, and why teams should be revisiting their technical stack decisions. Kevin also gives advice to developers and shares some approaches to running internship programs. Helpful Links Kevin's Website leaddev.com Kevin on...

Robby speaks with Ken Fogel, College Instructor, JCP EC member, and Java Champion. They discuss the benefits of unit testing, how Dawson approaches internship placement, and the importance of code documentation. Ken also talks about how software is about more than just getting things to work, and why it's important to focus on the long-term impact of coding decisions. Helpful Links Omnijava.com Ke...

Robby speaks with Murray Steele, Engineering Manager at CLEO AI. They discuss approaches to tracking down unused code in your system, working as a consultant vs within a product company, and why technical debt is good. Murray also talks about why we need to be cautious when we discuss prototypes and the importance of community  sharing experiences of helping co-organize London Ruby User Group. Hel...