Marianne Bellotti - Building Empathy by Asking, "How Would You Write This in 2007?"

Robby has a chat with Senior Software Engineer, Avery Quinn. Avery was previously a Senior Software Engineer at Remotion. Avery starts by sharing that she finds well-maintained software to have cohesive modules, be singularly responsible in its functions, and have just a general level of refinement over time. They will dive into the benefits of having a skeleton project that you can experiment with when weighing up different dependencies, tips for onboarding engineers to your teams, things to consider when building desktop applications, what it is like to work as a consultant, and later at a product company, the software product that Remotion is building for remote software engineers, why measuring velocity on a team can be a useful metric to track, and how her recent employer tracks and prioritizes technical debt work. Avery will also share advice for those who are struggling to get buy-in to prioritize technical debt work. Stay tuned for more! Book Recommendations: Just Enough Software Architecture By George Fairbanks Helpful Links: https://remotion.com/blog/refactoring-legacy-systems Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Robby has a chat with Carlos Blé, the CEO of Lean Mind, an organization focused on boosting the growth of developers and teams. Carlos is a software crafter, entrepreneur, mentor, speaker, podcaster, blogger, and author of several tech books in Spanish (Diseño Ágil con TDD and Código Sostenible). He is also the Founder of Savvily, a publisher specializing in tech books. Carlos will start off by sharing the four important traits of well-maintained software and examples of what maintainable tests are.  He will dive into the benefits of mutation testing and exploratory testing, why engineers should advocate for a TECHNICAL_DEBT.md file in their git repository, why software engineers should aim to reduce the technical burden for their product team, services that Lean Mind offers, his latest book, Código Sostenible, and how to be a good guest in another team's codebase. Stay tuned for that and so much more! Book Recommendations: Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg Helpful Links: Carlos on LinkedIn Carlos on Github Carlos on Twitter His Website https://leanmind.es/ Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Robby has a chat with Executive and Leadership Coach, Lena Reinhard (she/her/hers). Lena is a speaker, writer, and Founder of Lena Reinhard Leadership Coaching and Consulting. Previously, Lena served as the VP of Engineering with CircleCI and TravisCI, as well as the startup Founder and CEO of The Neighbourhoodie Software GmbH. From Lena’s perspective, well-maintained software is supposed to serve a business’s goals and continuously improve not just reactively. She highlights the importance of organizations investing in their engineering team's skills. Lena will also talk about software as a team sport, strategies for managing technical debt, how technical debt is a loaded term, challenges teams have faced with micro-services, and what engineers might be encountering after teammates have been laid off. Tune in for that and so much more. Book Recommendations: Into The Planet by Jill Heinerth Helpful Links: The lettuce pact 🥬   https://twitter.com/lrnrd https://www.linkedin.com/in/lenareinhard/ Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Robby has a chat with software engineer, trainer, and author of the book Grokking Simplicity, Eric Normand (he/him/his). As Eric reflects on his experience, the first thought he has of well-maintained software is that it’s like a unicorn (Something you can’t find in real life), but on a more serious note, he emphasizes that smaller code bases are easier to maintain and that the maintainability of a code base is also highly dependent on the team of engineers that are working on it. Robby and Eric will dive into the pros and cons of microservices in small organizations, why teams need to ensure they know where they're going with the future of their codebase, Eric's book - Grokking Simplicity, the differences within a functional programming language, higher-order functions, Eric’s journey toward authoring a technical book, and the value of engineers being able to get comfortable moving code around in a project without needing to ask for permission first. Tune in and enjoy! Book Recommendations: Book Recommendation: The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher W. Alexander> Helpful Links: Grokking Simplicity By Eric Normand, Manning Eric's Website Eric on LinkedIn Eric on Twitter Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Robby has a chat with Henrik Warne (he/him/his), the Senior Software Engineer at Talos. In Henrik’s view of well-maintained software, he talks about the importance of code having structure early on because, without structure, code tends to inevitably drift over time toward complexity. He highlights the importance of engineers being able to not only read code when they join a project but also be able to run the code and test it. Henrik will share the details of his blog titled, "There is No Software Maintenance," where he argues that software maintenance is simply software development, and how software is better seen as a product versus a project. He will talk about why all software engineers should spend a portion of their time working on bugs, tactics engineers can use to reflect on and capture their thoughts after fixing a bug, and strategies for teams to improve software and avoid rot. Stay tuned for more and enjoy. Book Recommendations: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie Helpful Links: There is No Software Maintenance By Henrik Warne Henrik's Blog Henrik on Twitter Henrik on LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Robby has a chat with Andy Croll (he/him/his), the CTO at CoverageBook, a Rubyist, the Organizer of the Brighton Ruby Conference, an author, speaker, and bootstrapper. The most important thing when it comes to the maintainability of software is “That code is read much more than it’s written”, Andy says. He insists that the core focus should always be on readability.  Andy will dive into the rationale for why weird things in our code should stay weird until we find a better way to express it and even shared some specific examples within a Ruby on Rails environment. He will share his career journey from the front end into the backend, what prompted him to start the First Ruby Friend project to connect newcomers to a community with people who want to be mentors, examples of how to manage technical debt in a small team and why it's okay to let some stuff "sit in the air", and so much more. Stay tuned. It’s going to be an epic one. Book Recommendations: The Overstory by Richard Powers Helpful Links: Andy's website One Ruby Thing Brighton Ruby First Ruby Friend Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Arpit Mohan, the Co-Founder and CTO of Appsmith, an open-source low-code tool that helps developers build dashboards and admin panels very quickly. Appsmith helps businesses build any custom internal application within hours. In regard to well-maintained software, Arpit points to the importance of engineers writing code for humans and not machines while also focusing a lot on readability. He believes useful code comments are also very crucial in facilitating well-maintained software. Arpit will share his wisdom on the importance of conveying the why over the how behind any code being developed, how open source and closed source projects have different code commenting/documentation needs, why engineers should always keep an eye out for code smells and friction in their ability to deliver software functionality, the problems that AppSmit helps organizations solve, the differences between B2C vs B2B when it comes to the benefits of automated testing, performance concerns, etc, and much much more. Stay tuned, enjoy, and if you like the episode, don’t forget to share. Book Recommendations: The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership by Bill Walsh - https://www.amazon.com/Score-Takes-Care-Itself-Philosophy/dp/1591843472 Helpful Links: https://twitter.com/mohanarpit https://twitter.com/theappsmith https://www.appsmith.com/ Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Noah Clark, a consulting applications developer at Merchants Bonding Company, one the top 15 largest surety writers in the United States. On the top of Noah’s list of things that facilitate the maintainability of software is team dynamics. Well-maintained software can never be achieved by a single individual refactoring code or having grand ideas/visions. It’s made possible by a team coming together and committing to a practice of well-maintained software. He highlights trust and communication between a team and the company they’re developing software for as key. He also advises engineers to avoid writing code just to solve problems. Tune in as Robby and Noah discuss why engineers should ensure that their software code leans on the business domain especially when it comes to naming things, how teams can determine when it’s necessary to refactor and/or improve existing software, the complexities that come with basing software development projects on best practices, why and how to avoid blog post driven development, why referring to "organizational debt" might be more effective than "technical debt", and so much more. Enjoy! Book Recommendations: The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman - https://5lovelanguages.com/ I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi -  https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/ Helpful Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noahmclark/ https://twitter.com/nolarknoah Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with the Engineering Manager at Planet Argon, Ben Parisot. Ben has worked in the tech industry since 2010 and has worn many, many hats: blogger, web designer, web developer, technical producer, scrum master, technical project manager, copywriter, and more. He loves all parts of the software development lifecycle and always has a creative personal web or mobile app humming along outside of work. The first thing Ben says he looks for that represents well-maintained software is thorough and up-to-date documentation.  He feels that every developer or project manager must ensure that they leave a good paper trail of the work they do. He encourages engineering teams to do regular documentation audits of internal and external documentation they use in order to find outdated and obsolete documentation. Drawing from his experience working on multiple client projects, his advice is to build processes around auditing and improving documentation to make sure it's effective. This convo will prove incredibly valuable as he shares some tips on how engineering teams can go about that based on the projects they work on and so much more. Don’t miss out! Book Recommendations: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari Helpful Links https://www.linkedin.com/in/benparisot/ https://www.planetargon.com/about/ben-parisot Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Stefanni Brasil, the Co-founder and Educator at hexdevs, Co-creator of the Get to Senior online course and community, and most recently joined thoughtbot as a developer. Reflecting on her experience in the industry, Stefanni says that well-maintained software can only be a result of teams agreeing on conventions before coding starts.  She feels that the term technical debt facilitates better communication and her perspective around it has shifted over time due to the fact that most projects that have employed it are the ones that have been generating revenue. Stefanni notes that software engineering teams can work seamlessly when they document their decisions (on Trello, Google Docs, etc) for future reference. Creating an environment where every team member feels safe and comfortable to speak up about any issues also contributes to project success.  Steffani will also share her knowledgeable insights on how to be a good guest in another team's codebase as a consultant and the steps to take when onboarding with a new client project. She will dive into her Get to Senior course and highlight all the value that it offers. Tune in for more of her software engineering wisdom. Book Recommendations: The Assertiveness Workbook: How to Express Your Ideas and Stand Up for Yourself at Work and in Relationships by Randy J. Paterson Helpful Links Fearless Change: Patterns for Introducing New Ideas https://twitter.com/stefannibrasil https://www.stefannibrasil.me/ https://academy.hexdevs.com/ Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Andrea Goulet, the CEO of Corgibytes, a software development shop dedicated to maintaining and modernizing software applications. Named by LinkedIn as one of the top ten professionals in software under 35, Andrea is the host of the podcast Legacy Code Rocks, is the author of the forthcoming book, “Empathy-Driven Software Development”, has co-founded several successful technology companies, and has taught over 50,000 students how to turn soft skills like empathy and communication into software skills. Through her newest venture, Heartware.dev, she is on a mission to operationalize empathy for tech teams and keynotes frequently about building a business based on balance, empathy, and trust; the perils of the technical/non-technical divide; and the technical philosophies around working with legacy code. Andrea says that the maintainability of software comes down to trust and while she doesn't find the term technical debt useful, she uses it in instances where it’s being widely used especially in software remodeling projects. From her experience, the term is not useful at all when dealing with business-minded people who view debt differently. She points out that the success of a project is always highly dependent on the project owner and the team working on their project having shared goals as they approach the writing of software. Robby and Andrea will also dive into why we should avoid deferring to other people and defaulting to being ticket takers, how empathy has different definitions, avoiding us vs them thinking, and so much more. Stay tuned and enjoy! Book Recommendations: Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself by Nedra Glover Tawwab Helpful Links https://twitter.com/andreagoulet https://heartware.dev https://corgibytes.com Coming in 2023! Empathy-Driven Software Development by Andrea Goulet Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, John Ousterhout. John founded Electric Cloud with John Graham-Cumming. Ousterhout was a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley where he created the Tcl scripting language and the Tk platform-independent widget toolkit and proposed the idea of co-scheduling. Ousterhout led the research group that designed the experimental Sprite operating system and the first log-structured file system. Ousterhout also led the team that developed the Magic VLSI computer-aided design (CAD) program. When it comes to the maintainability of software, John is more interested in the design aspects of software and feels that indeed the core goal of good software design is to make it easier to maintain software and continually improve it. He explains what problem decomposition is all about and why his course on the art of software design is probably the only one of its kind in the world.  Join the convo as he also talks about how to write good code comments and why they are so important, the main differences between tactical and strategic programming, how engineers can discuss long-term improvements with their boss, how his curriculum has students approach a project with two different designs before deciding which to proceed with, and so much more. Enjoy! Book Recommendations: Talent is Overrated By Geoff Colvin  Helpful Links A Philosophy of Software Design By Professor John Ousterhout Tcl/Tk John on Twitter John’s Webpage Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Courtney Wilburn (She/Her/Hers), the Sr. Engineering Manager at Elastic Cloud, the leading platform for search-powered solutions. She is an experienced DevOps Engineer, speaker, and writer. With solutions in enterprise search, observability, and security, Elastic helps enhance customer and employee search experiences, keep mission-critical applications running smoothly, and protect against cyber threats. For Courtney, well-maintained software is all about software having a good community around it that is enthusiastic about its long-term success.  She shares her expertise on the traits of excellent documentation and talks about how engineers should go about joining a software team. Courtney uses the metaphor technical debt and she will graciously break down how her team discusses, prioritizes, and documents what and when they focus on it. She also talks about the challenges that come with process debt, how to go about hiring junior-level engineers, and what we can do to foster mentorship in our teams. It’s going to be a very interesting conversation so don’t miss out. Book Recommendations: Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds By Adrienne Maree Brown Helpful Links Courtney on Twitter Courney’s Website Courtney on LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Nelida Velazquez, a Senior Software Engineer at Cobalt Labs, a company that modernizes traditional pentesting through their Pentest as a Service (PtaaS) platform. By combining a SaaS platform with an exclusive community of testers, they deliver the real-time insights teams need to remediate risk quickly and innovate securely. Nelida highlights documentation, testing, and consistency as the three things that are critical to ensuring that software is maintainable. She feels that when it comes to best practices versus every individual engineers idea of software maintainability, it boils down to how a team agrees to go about things.  She dives further into the basics of team agreements and talks about things an engineer should consider when they're the new person on a team, why engineers should view documentation as part of the deliverables, how to properly address technical debt, meaningful tests, and when to potentially remove tests, and so much more. Tune in on your favorite podcast player and don’t hesitate to send us any of your comments and suggestions. Book Recommendations: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Helpful Links A Philosophy of Software Design By John Ousterhout's Nelida's Blog Nelida on Twitter Nelida on LinkedIn Cobalt Labs Website Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Casey Watts!, the Founder at Happy and Effective and the author of Debugging Your Brain. Their conversation begins with Casey calling out engineers who go about the maintainability of their software by just cleaning stuff up instinctually instead of having a deliberately prioritized engineering backlog. He talks about the importance of team leaders giving engineers leeway to choose when to explore and try things, and even take some free time. That enables the engineers to feel more autonomous and have more ownership.  Casey also shares strategies for managing technical debt and how teams can invest in moving faster. And on the topic of team culture, he will dig into the concept of culturesmithing and talk about the five levers that can be used to make changes happen, for example, in engineering and prioritization of backlogs. You will get to learn about the service engagements that Happy and Effective offers and gain so much more value in this candid 44-minute conversation that Robby and Casey had. Stay tuned for more. Book Recommendations: Storytelling with Data by Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic Helpful Links Culturesmithing @ RailsConf 2022  Coursera: Human-Centered Design: an Introduction Casey on Twitter Happy and Effective Empathy in Tech Debugging Your Brain Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Marc Cornellà, the official maintainer and major contributor for the Oh My Zsh project. Marc will start off by sharing his wisdom on the characteristics of well-maintained proprietary software. He will also tell us whether the same characteristics apply when it comes to open-source software. Marc started contributing to open-source projects back in 2011 when he worked on a university project that generated schedules for new students. In 2015, he transitioned to Oh My Zsh, which has been the biggest project he’s ever worked on.  Oh My Zsh is a framework for Z Shell that allows engineers to install and use different themes that one can personalize according to the look and feel of their terminal. It has 200+ plugins and about 100 themes. It not only allows one to use plugins and themes from other projects, but also offers thousands of helpful functions, helpers, and so much more. The great thing about Oh My Zsh is that an engineer doesn't have to be an advanced hacker to use it.  Marc will among many other things share strategies that can be used to help organize and prioritize a popular project that has a consistent 400 to 500 open pull requests from people across the planet, and some future ideas for Oh My Zsh. You won’t wanna miss this one. Enjoy! Book Recommendations: Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler Helpful Links Marc on Twitter Marc on GitHub Oh My Zsh Oh My Zsh on GitHub Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with the CEO and Co-Founder of CodeSee, Shanea Leven. The conversation starts with Shanea’s insights on the relatively unknown shift left movement which, from her own hands-on experience, has been a very great way for engineers to write maintainable and resilient code. The shift left movement emphasizes on moving, understanding, and visualizing code while moving everything closer to development when one is writing their code instead of waiting until things are in production. That has proven to be very helpful as codebases increase in size and complexity because it enables engineers to catch things before they write their code.  Shanea talks about the importance of code visibility (Being able to visually summarize how your code is working at every step of the development process before production) and how to go about it. She shares how the code visibility movement is helping engineers overcome the challenges they face when they go into legacy codebases to try and refactor them and get them back to their clients in a way that the clients can be able to maintain them. Tune in as Robby and Shanea dive into a lot more juicy topics around managing documentation, how CodeSee offers great value to engineers, tech debt, spatial reasoning, and much more. Book Recommendations: Crucial Conversations Helpful Links Codesee Codesee Learn Open Source Hub Blog post discussing spatial reasoning Talk including discussion on spatial reasoning  Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Greg Foster, the Co-founder and CTO of Graphite, an open-source CLI and code review dashboard built for engineers who want to write and review smaller pull requests, stay unblocked, and ship faster. Based on his tons of infrastructure engineering, he highlights getting modules and interfaces right as one of the ways to create clean maintainable software. They cover a variety of topics including a technical introduction to Graphite’s tooling, the challenges that come with SOAs versus monolithics especially for small teams, why monorepos might be a better approach for your software team's workflow, types of metrics a team should track, and how can we, as software developers, help the product team understand the value of investing time in maintenance tasks to keep output optimal. Stay tuned for more! Book Recommendations: A Philosophy of Software Design By John Ousterhout The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick Helpful Links Greg on LinkedIn Greg on Twitter Graphite Website Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby has a chat with Urban Hafner, a Senior Software Developer at Risk Methods. The episode starts off on a high note with Urban explaining that maintainable software is all about time being spent on looking after one’s code base. While it doesn’t guarantee that a code base will be perfect all the time, Urban insists that it makes things better than when an engineer just develops new features and leaves everything else the same. That ends up causing huge messes that are an uphill task to clean up.  From his years of experience, he also shares how team attrition negatively affects the maintainability of a code base, the challenges that startups face when the original agency and/or developers depart from their software projects, the importance of measuring your progress on maintenance work to keep the momentum up, and a lot more of his wealth of engineering wisdom.  The experience he had going from a software engineer to an engineering manager, only to realize that he wasn't a good manager, and then navigating back into an individual contributor role will make for a very interesting story. So don’t miss out. See you on the inside! Book Recommendations: Teixcalaan Series by Arkady Martine Helpful Links Urban on Twitter Expanding Beyond Podcast Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 an engineer to drink. For her, well-maintained software should be about delivering great value to users with minimal pain points. She ends up talking about a lot of skills that are excellent for software engineers as well as managers. She also shares her expertise on career path options for engineers between being an individual contributor and transitioning into management, how managers can reduce drag on their engineering teams by applying a human-focused approach to their management, how technical debt can impact both the recruitment and retention of software engineers, and so much more. Book Recommendations: Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well By Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen Helpful Links Amy on Twitter Amy on LinkedIn Amy’s Newsletter Amy’s Website ConvertKit is HIRING Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 will be cross-posted across several of our podcasts. Hosted by Jemma Issroff, Brittany Martin, Robby Russell, Chris Oliver, Jason Charnes, Andrew Culver, Andrew Mason, Nicholas Schwaderer, and Colleen Schnettler. Podcasts Involved The Ruby on Rails Podcast Maintainable Software Podcast Framework Friends Remote Ruby Software Social Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.

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 teaches Python and mobile development at the University of Chicago’s Master's program in Computer Science, hosts workshops for O’Reilly, and writes at ChelseaTroy.com   For Chelsea, one of the most important characteristics of well-maintained software is a conscious effort to ensure that enough context remains available for engineers who come in without existing familiarity with the system to gain that context and maintain it. She shares more of her valuable insights on how we can go about making software more maintainable and explains why she’s not a proponent of the term “Technical debt”.  She also talks about some of the strategies she uses to quantify maintenance work, how engineers can document their code with more helpful error messages that provide more context, and how to discuss the removal of features to reduce long-term maintenance load with a product team. To learn more, including what you should do when you join a new team with existing software, stay tuned.  Book Recommendations: Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker Helpful Links Chelsea on Twitter Chelsea’s Website A Rubric for Evaluating Team Members’ Contributions to a Maintainable Code Base Quantifying Technical Debt Reducing Technical Debt Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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, engineering management, consulting, and she’s led several modernization efforts along the way. Paula will highlight readability and unit testing as the two most important characteristics of maintainable software, and dive into what legacy code really is, how technical debt has changed over the years, and how the industry underestimates the emotional and mental cost of context-switching. From her many years in the game, Paula will also talk about her long experience of software modernization and share her expertise on why engineers should pay enough attention to cleaning their code as they go, how organizations have to grapple with different challenges due to ineffective technical decision making processes, finding the right balance of automated testing, and so much more. For those of you who are trying to figure out what direction to head in where your engineering careers are concerned, Paula will share her wisdom in what it’s like to work in the consulting space versus a product-oriented organization. It’s going to be one very resourceful episode so don’t miss out. Book Recommendations: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau Helpful Links The Greyshore Website Paula on LinkedIn Paula on Medium Paula on Twitter Crucial Conversations The Practice of Adaptive Leadership Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 of naming variables and functions when we write, Ben says a glossary is fundamentally important. He then introduces us to Dev.to, shares the story of how they opted to open source the underlying platform, and what they needed to be ready to share it with the public. He also talks about how that open source software evolved out of Dev.to and became a core aspect of their financial success. Ben advises engineers to avoid overcorrecting each time they start up a new software project.  And for those of us who may be considering open-sourcing our software, Ben will enlighten us on the things we should consider beforehand (In particular, security). Tune in to our conversation for that and more! Book Recommendations: Creative Quest by Questlove Helpful Links Ben’s Twitter Ben on GitHub Ben on Dev.to Forem Website Forem on GitHub Dev.to Community Also…follow Robby on Dev.to! Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 useful commit messages and conveying the why over the how. He also shares examples of executable documentation.  Robby and Avdi dive into what technical debt looks like for different teams and how it can either be taken as a serious course of action or just as a term for areas of friction in a codebase. Avdi shares his experience in organizing technical debt-type tasks and highlights the importance of teams being able to articulate and quantify friction. As organizations continue to adopt the DevOps mindset, there is lingering debate as to whether it is more of a philosophy or a role.  Avdi believes that DevOps is less a role and a philosophy, an approach to lifecycle management and how teams are organized around that outlook. Stay tuned to sample more of what Avdi had to share in this resourceful 44-minute episode. Book Recommendations: The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World Resources Mentioned: The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford  Team Topologies - by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'  by Sidney Dekker Confident Ruby By Avdi Grimm Exceptional Ruby By Avdi Grimm  Helpful Links Avdi’s LinkedIn Avdi’s Twitter Avdi on GitHub Avdi on YouTube Graceful.Dev Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 brevity in code and documentation, when and where copy/paste is appropriate, and how to get a better handle on your costs of cloud resources to better predict future utilization and pricing. He also shares what problems Archera.ai solves for its customers and how Archera captures, estimates, and prioritizes its own technical debt. Stay tuned for more on that and to get Aran’s advice on how to propose investing time into paying down technical debt. As an added bonus, you can go to https://archera.ai/?modalId=request-demo-podcast to get a free demo of Archera’s services. Book Recommendations: Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity by Frank Slootman  The Mythical Man-Month by Fred Brooks Helpful Links Aran’s LinkedIn Aran’s Twitter Aran’s Website Archera Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 he highlights the undeniable importance of automated test suites and code readability, describes the arc of an engineer’s career, and talks about the past experiences that make him lean more towards clarity over cleverness when coding. He also shares some of the things engineers should consider in regard to pulling in third-party code or writing from scratch, and so much more. Enjoy! Helpful Links Jerod’s LinkedIn Jerod’s Twitter Changelog Media Changelog Podcasts Robby's appearance on Changelog Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 LinkedIn Solo.io and on twitter Idit's Github Idit's Book Recommendation: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 importance of useful CHANGELOGs, debugging tips for Rubygems, when to and/or not to use mocks. Helpful Links Emily's Twitter Emily's LinkedIn Emily's Website Emily's Github WNB.rb @wnb_rb, contact organizers Emily's talk at RubyConf 2021: To mock, or not to mock? Sandi Metz: Making is Easy, Mending is a Challenge Mongo Ruby Driver Emily's Book Recommendation: Radical Candor by Kim Scott Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 Software Akita on Twitter Book Recommendation: Sick in the Head by Judd Apatow Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Shaundai Person, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix and creator of TypeScript for JavaScript devs. In this episode, Shaundai shares her experience of moving from a career in sales to software engineering, traits of maintainable software, and how to make an impact when you join a new team. Helpful Links Shaundai's Twitter Shaundai's LinkedIn Shaundai's Polywork TypeScript for JavaScript Developers, that Shaundai is building. Talk: Simple Made Easy by Rich Hickey Book Recommendation: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized world by David Epstein Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 Series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 The Senior Mindset Series Tia Blog post: How to rewrite your app while growing to a $100,000,000 series B Swizec's book recommendations: How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke Subscribe to Maintainable on: Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Heidi Waterhouse, Transformation Advocate at LaunchDarkly and contributor to Docs for Developers. In this episode, Heidi shares the benefits of relying on documentation templates, getting over the paralysis of a blank page, why teams should consider hiring technical writers, speaking at conference, as well as her formula for outlining a tech talk idea. Helpful Links Heidi's Website Heidi's Twitter Heidi's LinkedIn Order the new book, Docs for Developer, that Heidi is a co-author of Blog post: When you stare into the blank page, it stares back at you Video: Lillian Gilbreth: First Lady of Engineering Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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. Topics covered Why we should celebrate legacy software as a victory..that means it was successful Why Basecamp has opted to release new versions of their Saas vs iterating on a single version How Basecamp handles pure maintenance work and accounts for security backports A high-level intro into ShapeUp and how Basecamp/HEY's team manages bugs and follow-up work during their two-week cooldowns Why Basecamp has a Security Infrastructure Performance (SIP) team that deals with tipping points, security patches, and reactive work Basecamp's Research & Fidelity team that focuses on building and extracting frameworks Why hasn't Ruby on Rails undergone a major rewrite? What types of testing does DHH find to provide the most value for effort in their Ruby on Rails applications? DHH's thoughts on Test-Driven Development (TDD) How budgeting is more valuable than estimating What is Ruby on Rails competitive advantage in the current field of technology platforms? Ruby on Rails isn't a talking-point anymore and why that is not a problem Book Recommendation: "The Manual" by Epictetus Helpful Links DHH on Twitter Shape Up Basecamp HEY Blog Ruby on Rails DHH on Github Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 Debt vs Technical Waste Follow Matt on Twitter Matt's blog Book Recommendation: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B Cialdini PhD Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 engineers make when conducting code reviews. She also shares helpful tips on how to provide meaningful feedback without making it personal and/or blaming. Helpful Links Dr. Greiler's Website Workshops Podcast Dr. Greiler on Twitter SE Unlocked on Twitter Dr. Greiler on LinkedIn [Book Recommendation] Essentialism, Greg McKeown  Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 how to build your Agile toolbox. Helpful Links Mark's Website Mark on Twitter [Book Recommendation] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey [Book Recommendation] From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams: Collaborate to Deliver, Johanna Rothman and Mark Kilby [Article] Is hybrid-remote going backward or forward?  Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 Twitter Kevin on LinkedIn Careers at Harvest [Book Recommendation] The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Ben Horowitz Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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 Ken's Twitter Dzone Article Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

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. Helpful Links Murray's Website Murray's Twitter Murray's LinkedIn London Ruby User Group CLEO IA job openings Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Dr. Felienne Hermans, Author and Associate Professor at Leiden University. They discuss the importance of building mental models, the difference between short-term and working memory, and how to take control of your own onboarding by confirming assumptions and asking effective questions. Dr. Felienne also talks about steps to understand a new-to-you codebase, as well as exercises to improve how you read code. Helpful Links Dr. Felienne's Website Dr. Felienne's Twitter The Programmers Brain [Book Recommendation] What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Bertold Kolics, Software Quality Manager at mabl. They discuss the benefits of documenting software behavior, tracking down and removing dead code, and challenges that teams face when relying on 3rd-party APIs and libraries. Bertold also talks about the role of a Software Quality Manager, as well as tips on how to evaluate open-source components. Helpful Links Bert's Website Bert's Twitter Bert's LinkedIn [Book Recommendation] The Economics of Emotion: How to Build a Business Everyone Will Love, Kyle M.K. Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Kent C. Dodds, software engineer and teacher. They discuss the benefits of duplication, Kent's journey to becoming an educator, and what it's like managing a community of engineers. Kent also talks about flipping the test pyramid upside down and focusing on fewer, longer tests. Helpful Links Kent's Podcast Kent's Twitter Kent's LinkedIn https://epicreact.dev/ https://testingjavascript.com/ https://kentcdodds.com https://kentcdodds.com/discord https://kentcdodds.com/podcast https://epicreact.dev/articles https://epicreact.dev/podcast [Blog Post Recommendation] AHA Programming  Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Maintainable Nails: Bonus Episode 06 Robby speaks with Mark Adams, who is known by his friends and family as, "Mark." On this episode, he shares his lessons from having attended Burning Man several times, taking care of your infant's nails, and bridging the gap when two people move-in together and need to intermix their nail tools. Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Maintainable Nails: Bonus Episode 05 Robby speaks with Amy Michelle Sorensen, former NedX speaker and self-described "nails for life" coach. Amy digs into her research findings from a several year study on wine and nails, long-term care, supplements, and navigating remote nail coaching during a global pandemic. Helpful Links Twitter LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Maintainable Nails: Bonus Episode 04 Robby speaks with Logan Luke Tyler Tanner, acclaimed motivational life coach, author, and speaker. Logan Luke Tyler shares his rationale for why it's important to focus, first, on clean nails and then to focus on the additional layers, overcoming nail biting,  and the future of keyboards. Helpful Links Bio LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Maintainable Nails: Bonus Episode 03 Robby speaks with Erica Tafavoti, food blogger, beverage temperature conisseur, and podcast host. Erica shares her perspective on maintenance before sporting, those awkward, tender...moments, mental health during before and during a global pandemic, getting the perfect hand photo, and discuss her new podcast. Helpful Links Bio LinkedIn Podcast: Unwell with Erica Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Maintainable Nails: Bonus Episode 02 Duncan doesn't think Robert is asking a good question, but it isn't the right question. In this discussion, they dig into the tyranny of the mammalian genetic legacy, the future of maintainability, investing in new ventures, pandemic vaccines, and being an ethical consumer on Earth and in space. We steer clear of any current legal disputes that Duncan is involved in. Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Maintainable Nails: Bonus Episode 01 Robby speaks with Shannon Jackson about existing in the life you have vs the one you want, long-term maintenance, the benefits of stickers, remote consultations, frito dust, and gutter nails that don't belong to you. Helpful Links Bio LinkedIn [Book Recommendation] Untamed, Glennon Doyle Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Brian Scanlan, Principal Systems Engineer at Intercom. They discuss the benefits of having consistent software patterns across an organization, how run books are a must-have (and why they should be tested), and optimizing for developer productivity. Brian also talks about approaches to reducing deployment time and why it is so vital to be responsive to their customers. Helpful Links Intercom's Engineering Site Brian's Twitter Brian's LinkedIn [Book Recommendation] Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom, William Glasser Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Alexandre Omeyer, Co-founder and CEO of Stepsize. They discuss how high-quality software requires team ownership, some traits of well-maintained software, and the different sizes of technical debt. Alexandre also shares advice on how engineers can step up and take action today. Helpful Links Stepsize's Website Stepsize on Twitter Alexandre on Twitter [Book Recommendation] Drive, Daniel H. Pink Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Roopak Venkatakrishnan, Engineering Manager at Bolt. They discuss why it's important to document the weird things and strategies for keeping your system easy to begin developing in. Roopak also talks about why we end up with silos of knowledge and how to alleviate that problem. Helpful Links Roopak's Website Roopak on Twitter Roopak on LinkedIn Swissknife CircleCI orb Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Benjamin Wood, CEO and Co-Founder of Hint. They discuss the importance of being able to iterate quickly, and the optimal code-to-test ratios. Benjamin also talks about the pros and Cons of using Monkey Patching, as well as suggestions for where to prioritize tests on a legacy Ruby on Rails application. Helpful Links Hint.io Github.com/hintmedia/railsdock Benjamin on Twitter [Book Recommendation] The E-Myth Revisited, Michael E. Gerber Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Johanna Rothman, President at Rothman Consulting Group, Inc. They discuss traits of healthy teams, how to respond to colleagues who vent and/or complain to you, and strategies for growing a team. Johanna also talks about the importance of understanding that moving into management is a career change vs a promotion. Helpful Links Johanna on LinkedIn Johanna on Twitter Johanna's Website [Book Recommendation] 7 Rules for Positive, Productive Change, Ester Derby [Book Recommendation] The No Asshole Rule, Robert I. Sutton, PhD Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Helen Scott, Java Developer Advocate at Jet Brains. They discuss tips on how to measure team satisfaction, what is/isn't technical debt, and the impact of being remote during a pandemic. Helen also talks about her background as a software engineer and being a technical writer. Helpful Links Helen on LinkedIn Helen on Twitter Helen's Website [Book Recommendation] Word Perfect: Curious Coinages and Etymological First Aid For Every Day of the Year, Susie Dent Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Robert Kaufman, Senior Partner at Notch8 and Cofounder of LEARN Academy. They discuss the importance of treating software development as a craft, tips on helping peers troubleshoot via pairing, and how technical debt can be used as an excuse. Robert also talks about keeping a healthy junior to senior ratio (2:1) and how to be a good guest in another team's codebase. Helpful Links Learn Academy Notch8 Blog Robert on Twitter Robert on GitHub [Book Recommendation] Brain Rules, John Medina Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Heidi Helfand, Director of Product & Technology Excellence at Procore Technologies. They discuss how to reduce fear when making changes, understanding the importance of supporting roles for technical teams, and why we should all keep a living document that lists all of our accomplishments. Heidi also talks about different ways to benchmark a team and how to build alliances. Helpful Links Heidi's book Heidi on Twitter Heidi's Website [Book Recommendation] Crucial Conversations Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Kerry Patterson and Joseph Genny Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Jutta Eckstein; coach, consultant, trainer, speaker, and author. They discuss the importance of being able to deliver continuously, the difference between technical debt and gold plating, and the challenges of synchronous vs asynchronous communication during a global pandemic. Jutta also talks about why teams need to consider the carbon footprint of their cloud infrastructure and doing what we can to reduce e-waste. Helpful Links Jutta's Website Jutta on LinkedIn Jutta on Twitter [Book Recommendation] Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, Caroline Criado Perez Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with John Cech, Senior Ruby on Rails Engineer at Planet Argon. They discuss examples of technical debt, how John catapulted his professional development via mentoring, and the benefits of having consistent coding conventions as a team. John also talks about how he helped a software project increase test coverage while also reducing the speed to run them. Helpful Links More About John [Book Recommendation] 1Q84, Haruki Murakami  Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Theresa Neate, Director of Quality Engineering at Slalom Build Australia. She shares an overview of the Quality Engineer role, why quality isn't something you can assure in software, and why we shouldn't hire junior developers and toss them into a testing role. Helpful Links [Book] The DevOps Handbook by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, and John Willis [Book] 97 Things Every Cloud Engineer Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Expert Follow Theresa on Twitter Theresa's website Connect with Theresa on LinkedIn Testing and Quality: Correlation does not equal Causation Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Michael Springer, Software Engineer at JazzHR. They discuss the importance (and challenge) of naming things in your code, how to adopt a package vetting procedure as a team, and strategies to simplify comprehension for new team members. Michael also shares the long-term impact on all dependencies and their dependencies. Helpful Links Michael on Twitter Sprngr.com [Book Recommendation] Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, Cal Newport Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Jason Swett, Software Engineer at Meadows Eye. They discuss the value of understandability, differences between loose and tight coupling in code, and creating a shared vision as a team. Jason also discusses how teams struggle to retain quality engineers and how to teach testing to Ruby on Rails developers. Helpful Links Jason on Twitter Jason's Website The Rails with Jason Podcast [Book Recommendation] How to Win Friends & Influence People, Dale Carnegie Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Sudhir Reddy, VP of Engineering at Chef / Progress. They discuss what Sudhir calls "legacy debt", some challenges of managing open source projects with over 500 Github repositories, and how Chef built cohesive governance and EOL programs for open source contributions. Sudhir also shares advice for developers who are looking for a way to begin introducing automated tests in environments where that's not yet considered a valuable practice by the team. Helpful Links Sudhir on Twitter Chef's Website [Book Recommendation] What Customers Crave: How to Create Relevant and Memorable Experiences at Every Touchpoint, Nicholas Webb Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Monica Lent, Software Engineer, Founder, Speaker, and Travel + Technical blogger. They discuss the importance of clear boundaries between teams, Monica's participation in the 12 startups in 12 months challenge, and why it is okay to say "I don't (yet) have an opinion on that." Monica also shares advice for developers on coming up with topic ideas for blogging, and introduces us to her free email course. Helpful Links Monica on Twitter Blogging for Devs Monica's Website [Book Recommendation] The Compound Effect, Darren Hardy Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Episode Notes Robby speaks with Trae Robrock, Software Developer Engineer at GoDaddy. They discuss why readability matters (and how Ruby on Rails aligns well with this), the importance of implementing good team processes and communication channels, and the differences between explicit and non-explicit tradeoffs. Trae also share stories of successful and not-so-successful software rewrites.  Helpful Links Trae on Twitter Trae on LinkedIn Trae's Website Green Bits [Book Recommendation] Atomic Habits [Book Recommendation] The 4-Hour Workweek Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Mark Erikson, Software Engineer at Northrop Grumman and Redux Maintainer. They discuss common characteristics of well-maintained software code, documentation best practices, and advice for developers on how to begin contributing to open source projects. Helpful Links Mark on Twitter Mark on LinkedIn Mark's Blog Redux Site Divio Site Vue.js Site [Article] 7 Pieces of Information to Include in Technical Blog Posts Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Bonnie Brennan, Angular GDE and Founder of Angular Nation. They discuss the importance of keeping things modular, avoiding large files, and embracing DRY. Bonnie also shares her journey as a single mom and making a career change in her 30s, along with tips on how to ask for help within technical communities. Helpful Links Bonnie on Twitter Bonnie on LinkedIn Angular Nation Hack Your Future [Book Recommendation] A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Khaled Souf, Software Crafter and Software Coach at Zenika Montreal. They discuss the importance of tracking down dead code and deleting it, the benefits of a reliable automated test suite, and Khaled's journey of becoming a coach. Helpful Links Khaled on Twitter Khaled on LinkedIn Khaled's Website [Book Recommendation] Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Adrianna Chang, Software Developer at Shopify. They discuss the benefits of using SOLID principles. Adrianna also shares how Shopify has been turning a Ruby on Rails monolith into a module monolith, along with an overview of Shopify's Dev Degree Program and her experience through it. Helpful Links Adrianna on Twitter Adrianna on LinkedIn Article: Refactoring Legacy Code with the Strangler Fig Pattern [Book Recommendation] The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Mark Downie, Program Manager at Microsoft. They discuss the benefits of frameworks and approaches to making your open source project accessible and welcoming to new contributors and users. Mark also shares how Visual Studio's workflow for navigating customer requirements and getting early feedback, along with an introduction to what a Program Manager role is responsible for on the Visual Studio team. Helpful Links Mark on Twitter Mark's Blog [Book Recommendation] The Customer-Driven Playbook Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Glenn Vanderburg, Executive Director of Software Development at RE/MAX. They discuss what types of documentation should go in the repository vs external content tools and the importance of acknowledging how helpful older code was to get you to here. Glenn also shares the benefits of hiring developers who had made a career change prior to becoming a developer, along with the challenges for software engineers and organizations during COVID with everyone being distributed. Helpful Links Glenn on Twitter Glenn’s Website [Book Suggestion] Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Suzan Bond, Leadership Coach. They discuss how to advocate for your growth within your existing teams and the responsibilities of the individual and the organization. Suzan also shares how COVID is resulting in the fear of burnout and indicators that you might be nearing it yourself, along with advice to managers and developers on how to approach their next one-on-ones. Helpful Links Suzan on Twitter Suzan’s Website [Book] Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes, William Bridges Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Nicolas Carlo, Senior Tech Lead at BusBud. They discuss the tradeoffs when testing out new features and the benefits of using feature toggling/flags to keep code getting merged into main branches. Nicolas also shares how Busbud has quarterly sustainability weeks to work on improving things, along with advice for listeners who might feel like they are at a loss for how to get stakeholder buy-in on dealing with technical debt challenges. Helpful Links Nicolas on Twitter Nicolas's Website Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Brittany Martin, Engineering Lead at TextUs. They discuss the mistakes that developers make when discussing technical debt with stakeholders and why it is important to write automated tests against a live/production API. Brittany also shares how she became the host of the 5by5 Ruby on Rails podcast, along with her recent journey of changing jobs and passing technical knowledge over to peers and a future replacement. Helpful Links Brittany on Twitter Brittany's website 5by5 Ruby on Rails podcast Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Luke, experienced software developer and consultant. They discuss the challenges of being an iOS developer and what effective user stories should look like. Luke also shares how he is navigating the world of looking for full-time employment after a decade of freelancing. For interview practice, Robby asks Luke an interview question that Planet Argon asks prospective Ruby on Rails developers — hear his response! Helpful Links Luke on Twitter Luke's Website Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Hampton Lintorn Catlin, CEO at Veue. They discuss how to reframe technical updates as investments and lessons learned from collaborating in open source. Hampton also shares how why he avoids the phrase "technical debt", along with his first-hand story of how he helped invent the open-source projects Haml and Sass. Helpful Links Hampton on Twitter Hampton's website Veue Hampton's Wikipedia [Book] Cryptonomicon [Book] Snow Crash Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Pat Kua, Advisor, Mentor, and Coach at Patkua.com. They discuss good documentation and the consequences of the hero culture. Pat also shares how he transitioned from an individual contributor to his current role, along with the benefits of finding mentors and seeking advice from people in other fields. Helpful Links Pat on Twitter Pat on LinkedIn Pat's Website Level Up Newsletter Courses [Book] Drive [Book] Thinking in Systems Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Aaron Blohowiak, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix. They discuss mistakes teams make when refactoring too much before finding a product-market-fit and how Netflix deals with technical debt. Aaron also shares some early era Ruby on Rails stories, along with reasons why developers might be intimidated to apply at top-tier organizations like Netflix. Helpful Links Aaron on Twitter Aaron on LinkedIn [Book] Radical Candor [Book] Thinking in Systems Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Magda Miu, Squad Leader Developer at Orange. They discuss the benefits of a healthy pull-request & review process and the unique challenges of mobile device app development. Magda also shares how she transitioned from being a day-to-day code contributor to team leader, as well as her strategies for keeping her technical skills sharp when she is not coding on a regular basis. Helpful Links Magda on Twitter Magda on LinkedIn Magda's Website Magda on dev.to Magda on Medium [Books] Why Motivating People Doesn't Work . . . and What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing, and Engaging Practices of an Agile Developer: Working in the Real World Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Gant Laborde, CIO of Infinite Red. They discuss the unique challenges of maintaining React Native apps and the importance of sync points in an asynchronous work environment. Gant also shares an overview of the types of projects that Infinite Red focuses on and his experience being an open-source maintainer. Helpful Links Gant on Twitter Infinite Red on Twitter Gant's Website AI-FYI Website [Book] The War of Art Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Karen Lee Rigg, Engineering Lead at Permutive. They discuss being a good guest in another team's code base and dealing with imposter syndrome. Karen also shares how she moved from the consulting world to a startup working on a product, along with her journey from being a code contributor to a team lead. Helpful Links Karen on Twitter Karen on LinkedIn [Book] How to Win Friends & Influence People Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Gianluca Arbezzano, Sr Staff Software Engineer at Packet. They discuss the value of consistent documentation (and why deciding where to document something is so difficult for developers!), how Gianluca began contributing to open source projects early in his career, and share tips for those who are intimidated about the idea of contributing to open source. Helpful Links Follow Gianluca on Twitter Gianluca's website Connect with Gianluca on LinkedIn [Book] Obsessed: Building a Brand People Love from Day One by Emily Heyward Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Ali Spittel – podcast host at Ladybug Podcast, writer, and Faculty Lead at General Assembly. They discuss mentoring Junior Developers, how she built a community around her written content and daily coding puzzles, how to build your writing as a developer, and her experience being a digital nomad. Helpful Links Follow Ali on Twitter Follow We Learn Code on Twitter Ali Spittel's website Zen of Programming Ladybug Podcast Follow General Assembly on Twitter What Productivity Looks like to Me Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

The mic is turned around on Robby for this special episode of Maintainable. Robby is interviewed by guest host Kayla Reopelle, a Ruby on Rails Developer at Planet Argon. They discuss the need for more conversations about improving existing code in the community, learning to manage client expectations as a consultant, and when he learned he was a mender, not a maker. Helpful Links: Robby's Maintainable Rails email course Planet Argon's Rails Upgrade service [Book] Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss Oh My Zsh Follow Robby on Twitter About Robby Russell Connect with Robby on LinkedIn Connect with Kayla on LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Ryan Cromwell, Technical Director at Sparkbox. They discuss the importance of simplifying deployments, technical debt in the client-services industry, and the traits to seek when hiring software engineers for client-services based work. Helpful Links Follow Ryan on Twitter Sparkbox [Book] Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps Michael Feathers on Maintainable [Book] Working Effectively with Legacy Code Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Camille Fournier, Head of Platform Engineering at Two Sigma and author of The Manager's Path. They discuss the importance of avoiding overly clever code, onboarding developers to existing software projects and teams, and how to start approaching mentoring others and be a good mentoree. They also discuss topics from her book, like determining if a path toward management is right for you and navigating career growth in a technical role. Helpful Links Follow Camille on Twitter Camille on Medium The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change Camille's Blog: Elided Branches [Book] What Got Your Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter 97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Gonçalo Silva, CTO at Doist. They discuss embracing continuous improvements, having a healthy level of skepticism about rewrites. Gonçalo also shares how Doist onboards new engineers to their team, along with the challenges of hiring remote junior developers. Helpful Links Gonçalo on Twitter Laws of software evolution Doist Doist's blog Open positions at Doist Twist App [Book] Atomic Habits [Book] The Art of Learning Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Tudor Girba, CEO and Co-Founder at Feenk. They discuss how engineers work in the decision-making business, what skills are essential to build in engineers, and get an introduction to the concept of Moldable Development and the Glamorous Toolkit. Helpful Links Glamorous Toolkit Follow Girba on Twitter Follow feenk on Twitter Glamorous Toolkit on Github [Book] Man's Search for Meaning Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Jeff Haynie, Co-Founder and CEO at Pinpoint. They discuss boundaries around APIs and contracts, useful and less-useful metrics for development teams to focus on, and more. Jeff also gives an introduction to Pinpoint's tooling for software development teams and stakeholders, and shares a story about how he had to reverse-engineer a proprietary application in under 24hours to keep the trains running on time. Helpful Links Follow Jeff on Twitter Follow Jeff on Medium Pinpoint Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn Pinpoint Insights [Book] Hard Thing About Things Building Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Vladimir Khoriko, Tech Lead, Architect & Author. They discuss all things unit tests – what they are, the four pillars of good ones, examples of low-value unit tests, and more. They also discuss the age-old debate of rewrites vs. refactoring, and how to effectively prioritize maintenance work. Helpful Links Vladimir's books: Use promo code: podmaintainable20 for 20% off! Enterprise Craftsmanship Painless Unit Testing Vladimir's Pluralsight courses [Book] Atomic Habit Things You Should Never Do, Part 1 Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Bryan Helmkamp, Founder and CEO at Code Climate. Bryan discusses the use of the term "technical debt" now vs. 15 years ago, what he's learned from having thousands of engineering teams use their tools, and the long-term benefits of choosing to build their main application in Ruby on Rails. You'll also get an overview of Code Climate's main products. Helpful Links Code Climate The Code Climate blog Bryan on Twitter Code Climate on Twitter Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Dr. Aino Vonge Corry, founder of Metadeveloper, technical conference editor, and agile retrospective facilitator. They discuss effective vs. ineffective communication with stakeholders, how to prepare for retrospectives, and why it's important to focus on "What should we do better?" when reflecting on work. Helpful Links Dr. Aino Vonge Corry on Twitter Metadeveloper [Book] Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker How to Facilitate Distributed Retrospectives Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Trisha Gee, Developer Advocate at JetBrains. They discuss Trisha's role as a Developer Advocate, how open source library maintainers are underappreciated, and how developers can overcome their fear of writing, speaking, and contributing back to the community. Helpful Links Follow Trisha on Twitter Trisha's blog IntelliJ IDEA RubyMind [Book] 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know [Book] Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing by Mar Hicks Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with author, speaker, and 40-year programming veteran Sandi Metz. They discuss why it's hard to teach maintenance skills, how humans tend to get themselves into messy situations, Sandi's "Rules for Developers", and more. You'll also hear You'll also hear some thoughts on Ruby and Rails, and how Sandi uses the phrase, "Lambs to the Slaughter". Helpful Links Follow Sandi on Twitter Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers Refactoring by Martin Fowler CodeDevotional project Practical Object-Oriented Design 99 Bottles sandimetz.com [Book] Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Clare Sudbery, Lead Engineer with Made Tech. They discuss how to document and prioritize technical debt with a visual tool, trunk-based development patterns, and the importance of getting fast feedback. Helpful Links Follow Clare on Twitter In Simple Terms Clare's upcoming workshops and speaking engagements MadeTech Clare on Medium Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) by Martin Fowler Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference by Cordelia Fine Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Kelly Sutton, Software Engineer at Gusto. They discuss how to deal with technical debt from the pre-product/market fit era, the benefits of monoliths and knowing when to begin abstracting to micro-services, and the challenges of keeping Ruby on Rails applications up-to-date. Kelly also gives advice for developers who want to convince stakeholders to invest in refactoring projects – a common challenge. Helpful Links Follow Kelly on Twitter Kelly's website [Book] Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed by James C. Scott Talk on Desirable Tests Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks to Jonathan Abourbih, Engineering Team Lead at the BBC in Voice & AI. They discuss how to conduct blameless post-mortems, what's technical debt vs. bad code, and the challenges of measuring your success as a manager after years of being a developer. Jonathan also shares stories about large Java apps in a pre-Garbage Collection world. Helpful Links Jonathan on Twitter The Prime Directive BBC Careers Google's Project Aristotle Growing Object-Oriented Software Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman and Nat Pryce The Power In Agile Talk by Sarah Mei [Book] The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Jessica Kerr, Symmathecist at Jessitron LLC. They discuss why working on existing projects is more interesting than greenfield ones, the overuse and harm of the term "technical debt", and how software is not a craft. Jessica also gives an introduction to being a Symmathecist. Helpful Links Follow Jessica on Twitter Jessica's website Jessica's blog Symmathecist, Noun by Jessica Kerr [Book] Team Topologies book Arty's suggestion about "escalating risk": [Book] Ecology, the Ascendent Perspective by Robert Ulanowicz The Myth of the Sufficiently Smart Engineer by Aaron Blohowiak [Book] The Secrets of Consulting by Gerald M. Weinberg 7 Rules for Positive Productive Change by Esther Derby Systems thinking: Mel Conway on Twitter Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Jon Thornton, Engineer at Squarespace. This discuss examples of good technical debt, implementing a new monolith alongside another monolith (and when to extract to a microservice), metrics to track within your engineering team, and more. Helpful Links Three Kinds of Good Technical Debt Careers at Squarespace [Book] Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg Jon on Twitter Jon on Github Jon's website Jon on LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Ben Orenstein, CEO and Co-founder of Tuple, a remote pair programming app. They discuss why saying, "someday we'll go clean that up" doesn't work in reality, the downsides to putting maintenance work into a backlog, and implicit vs. explicit knowledge. Ben also gives an intro to Tuple. Ben on Twitter Tuple Tuple on Twitter [Book] The Great CEO Within Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Ernesto Tagwerker, Founder and CTO at FastRuby.io and Ombu Labs. They discuss the challenges of Ruby on Rails upgrade projects, running a software consultancy, hiring and mentoring junior developers, and more. Ernesto on Twitter FastRuby blog Ombu Labs Ernesto's site Escaping The Tar Pit: Introducing Skunk v0.3.2 at RubyConf 2019 [Book] The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Marit van Dijk, Software Engineer at bol.com. They discuss effective communication with stakeholders about technical debt, Marit's scenic route to becoming a software developer, and automated testing strategies when dealing with several services. They also cover lessons in mob programming and touch on README file best practices. Helpful Links Marit on Twitter Careers at bol.com Test Automation University Use Testing to Develop Better Software Faster Marit on Medium Testing on Production – deep backend edition The Wall of Technical Debt Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Robby speaks with Mike Perham, Founder and CEO at Contribsys and author of Sidekiq and Faktory. They discuss the pros and cons of using external dependencies, how Mike built a business off of his open source project, Sidekiq, and the dIfference in maintaining Ruby vs Go software projects. Helpful Links Mike on Github Mike on Twitter mikeperham.com Contribsys Sidekiq [Book] Rising by Elizabeth Rush [Book] The Watch, Thoroughly Revised by Gene Stone and Stephen Pulvirent Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Ev Haus, Head of Technology at ZenHub. They discuss how to get to zero technical debt, metrics an engineering team can measure, good pull-request etiquette, and more. Helpful Links Ev on Twitter Ev on Linkedin Ev's writing on Medium Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Adam Tornhill, founder of Empear and CodeScene. They discuss the benefits of having clear boundaries between teams, strategies for prioritizing where to start tackling technical debt, and how to improve the onboarding experience for developers new to a software codebase. Adam also shares a rare example of a successful rewrite project. Helpful Links Follow Adam on Twitter Adam's Website Empear CodeScene [Book] Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Your Code as a Crime Scene [Book] Software Design X-Rays Adam's TedX Talk on Code, Crime, Complexity Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with M. Scott Ford, CTO and Chief Code Whisperer at Corgibytes and co-host of the Legacy Code Rocks podcast. They discuss the difference between Makers and Menders, how to prioritize a technical debt backlog, and how to provide feedback to other developers. Helpful Links M. Scott Ford on Twitter Corgibytes Legacy Code Rocks [Book] Lehman’s Laws of Software Evolution and the Staged-Model [Book] Radical Candor Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Gitte Klitgaard, Agile Coach and Owner of Native Wired. They discuss how to create space for psychological safety, the importance of sharing mistakes and fuck-ups of the week, and understanding, coping and taking advantage of your Imposter Syndrome. Helpful Links Native Wired Gitte on Twitter Gitte on LinkedIn [Book] I Thought It Was Just Me by Brene Brown Brene Brown's Ted Talk on vulnerability Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Nathaniel Bibler, CTO at Envy Labs. They discuss how to talk about technical debt as a team, navigating communication challenges with clients, and how to be a good guest in another team's code base. If you work – or want to work – at an agency, you should listen to this episode. Helpful Links Follow Nathaniel on Twitter Insights by Envy Labs Nathaniel on Github Connect on LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Abby Bangser, Senior Test Engineer on the Platform Engineering Team at MOO. They discuss how maintainable code leans on a dependable build and test process, what metrics Moo's platform engineering team measures, and codifying your pipeline – including having pipelines build on a regular basis. Helpful Links Follow Abby on Twitter Careers at Moo Tester by Choice Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Viktor Klang, Deputy CTO at Lightbend Inc. They discuss how to avoid constant firefighting, effective use cases of TODO and FIXME comments, and how to create a safe space for developers to make mistakes. Helpful Links Follow Viktor on Twitter Viktor's website Lightbend Cloudstate Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Beth Long, Software Engineer on the Build & Deploy Tools Engineering team at New Relic. They discuss the origin of the technical debt metaphor, considering when a rewrite is necessary (spoiler alert – it rarely is), and speak about the limitations of agile across modern engineering teams. Helpful Links Beth's website Follow Beth on Twitter Connect with Beth on LinkedIn [Book] Beyond Human Error by David D. Woods [Book] Sources of Power by Gary Klein Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Emily Bache, Technical Agile Coach at ProAgile. They talk about her experience coaching teams on how to improve the long-term maintainability of their software – including how to still see your direct impact when coaching instead of coding. They also dig into the social aspect of development, mob programming, and how coding is a social activity. Helpful Links Follow Emily on Twitter [Book] Training From the Back of the Room by Sharon Bowman Coding is Like Cooking Connect with Emily on LinkedIn ProAgile Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Spotify Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Zee Spencer, owner of Zinc Cooperative, and programmer at Cohere. They speak about how social systems impact software maintainability, why legacy code is profitable code, and consulting within a timebox constraint. Helpful Links [Book] Mental Models: 30 Thinking Tools that Separate the Average From the Exceptional. Improved Decision-Making, Logical Analysis, and Problem-Solving [Book] Observing the User Experience Zee on Twitter Cohere Cohere on Twitter Zinc Cooperative Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Ana Nelson, a software developer, writer, improv performer, and creator of Dexy — an open-source tool for writing any kind of technical document that incorporates code. Helpful Links Ana's website Dexy Follow Ana on Twitter Ana on Github Connect with Ana on LinkedIn What is Transclusion? The Modern Scholar by Professor Michael D. C. Drout [Book] On the Origin of Stories: Evolution, Cognition, and Fiction [Book] The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Dave Aronson, Owner, Consultant (and T. Rex) at Codosaurus. Helpful Links Codosaurus Dave on Github Follow Dave on Twitter [Video] The Six Key Aspects of Software Quality [Book] The Pragmatic Programmer Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with programmer, speaker, and author Michael Feathers, most notably known as the author of the book Working Effectively with Legacy Code. Helpful Links [Book] Working Effectively with Legacy Code Follow Michael on Twitter R7kr Research & Conveyance R7kr Research & Conveyance on Twitter Socio-Technical Seeing: Modeling The Dynamics Of Code And Attention Michael's blog Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Justin Searls, Co-Founder at Test Double. Hear Justin's experience digging into technical debt, learn why software is like a sedimentary rock, and more. Helpful Links Follow Justin on Twitter Test Double Ruby gem: Suture Justin's Legacy Code talk at Ruby Kaigi Justin on Github Connect with Justin on LinkedIn [Book] Growing Object-Oriented Software Guided by Tests Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community

Robby speaks with Patricia Aas, Programming CTO at TurtleSec AS about how programming and security are intertwined. Helpful Links Turtlesec Connect with Patricia on LinkedIn More about Patricia Patricia on Twitter Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Nate Berkopec, owner of the Speedshop and Rails consultant. Nate speaks about speed in Rails, along with how to prioritize performance in your day-to-day development workflow. Helpful Links: Speedshop Follow Nate on Twitter Patterns of Enterprise Architecture Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Victor Rentea, an independent technical trainer and Lead Architect at IBM based in Romania. Victor talks about teaching other engineers about legacy code, calling yourself an "expert", and what to do when you're rushed to deliver features but are dealing with refactoring challenges. Helpful Links: Victor's website Follow Victor on Twitter Connect with Victor on LinkedIn [Book] The Business of Expertise [Book] Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman [Book] Extreme Programming Explained [Book] Refactoring (2nd Edition) [Book] The Software Craftsman Clean Coders Training Videos Youtube: Best Talks by Victor Rentea Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

This week's guest on Maintainable is Sandro Mancuso, Software Craftsman & Co-Founder of Codurance. Robby and Sandro cover topics like how to avoid technical debt, what skills make for a successful software consultant, and more. Helpful Links: Follow Sandro on Twitter Sandro's Book The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride Keyboard Katas  A Case for Outside-In Development Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

This week we're excited to have Bryan Liles, Senior Staff Engineer at VMWare, on Maintainable. Robby and Bryan chat about representation in the industry, how to use your job title to your advantage, and more. Helpful Links: Bryan on GitHub Follow Bryan on Twitter Follow VMWare on Twitter Pragmatic Programmers Book Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

This week's episode features Liz Keogh, Lean & Agile Coach and Trainer. Robby and Liz talk about behavior-driven development (BDD), what it's like to be a coach, and more! Helpful Links: Follow Liz on Twitter Visit Liz's website The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

On this week's episode, Robby talks to Colin Jones, CTO at 8th Light. They chat about software consultancy, what it means to be a good guest in someone else's codebase, and more. Helpful Links: Follow Colin on Twitter Follow 8th Light on Twitter Connect with Colin on LinkedIn Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems by Martin Kleppmann Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

This week Robby interviews the host of the Developer Tea podcast, Jonathan Cutrell. They discuss what constitutes debt, how to build a strong team, and more! Helpful Links: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Developer Tea Podcast Follow Jonathan on Twitter Jonathan on LinkedIn Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

This week Robby chats with Karolina Szczur about what people get wrong about technical debt, best practices for documentation for remote developers, and more. Helpful Links: Book: Radical Candor Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

This week Robby chats with Liran Haimovitch, co-founder of Rookout. Liran discusses things like how the term "technical debt" is misused, as well as how to overcome it. Helpful Links: Contact Liran Rookout Book: The Phoenix Project Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks to Robert Meaney, Head of Testing & Test Coach at Poppulo. Robert explains the difference between technical debt and testing debt, the importance of observability, and more! Helpful Links: Follow Robert on Twitter Robert on LinkedIn Testability Book Follow Testability Book on Twitter 3X with Kent Beck Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Melissa Eaden, Tech Lead in Quality at Unity 3D. She shares her experience working with legacy code as it relates to testing. Helpful Links: Follow Melissa on Twitter Melissa's blog Melissa on LinkedIn A Vigilante for Quality [Book] Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High Unity Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Steve Poling, Senior Technical Consultant at Excelon Development and long-time Software Developer. Steve describes whether he's team rewrite or team refactor, shares his definition of technical debt, and why uniformity of code matters. Helpful Links: Steve Poling on LinkedIn Excelon Development [Book] Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software Reduce Technical Debt by Using Unit Tests as Documentation Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Matt Weagle, Engineering Manager at Lyft. Matt discusses how his engineering teams have handled technical debt in small iterations vs. a major rewrite, why a whiteboard is the best tool for architectural challenges, and the most common mistakes he sees when engineers approach legacy code bases. Helpful Links: Follow Matt on Twitter Matt on LinkedIn Some Thoughts on Security After 10 Years of Gmail A Taxonomy of Yak Shaving [Book] The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier [Book] Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software by Michael T. Nygard [Book] The Phoenix Project, A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim , Kevin Behr [Book] The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper [Book] Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations by Nicole Forsgren Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Mariah Howard, Senior Product Manager at Thinkful, to discuss technical debt from a product management perspective. Mariah touches on Google's metrics framework, leading vs. lagging indicators, and technical debt in products outside of the world of code. You'll also learn more about Thinkful's mission and methodology as an online school for engineers. Helpful Links: Thinkful Mariah on LinkedIn Google HEART framework [Book] Design Thinking [Book] The Principles of Product Development Flow Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Anne Marie Kirby, CEO & Co-Founder of CoreHealth Global. She shares questions to ask before a software rewrite, evolving 10+ year old code, and proving a business case when pitching software improvements as a developer. Helpful Links: Core Health Follow Anne Marie on Twitter Anne Marie in Forbes Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Marco "Ocramius" Pivetta, a software consultant specializing in PHP. Marco gives his input on different types of technical debt he's seen, working with less experienced developers as a senior, and getting "kicked in the teeth" as a developer. He also shares what great senior devs should spend more time on (hint: It's not writing code). Helpful Links Follow Marco on Twitter Marco on Github [Book] Effective Java by Joshua Bloch [Book] Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!: A Beginner's Guide by Miran Lipovaca Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Lisa Crispin, co-author of Agile Testing and Testing Advocate at Mabl. Lisa speaks about "thinking skills" for developers, why testing professionals should be integrated into dev teams, testing and development cycles, and how to start building automated tests on a legacy application. Helpful Links Follow Lisa Crispin on Twitter Agile Testing Fellow Agile Testing with Lisa Crispin DevTestOps Community The Nightmare Headline Game by Elisabeth Hendrickson [Book] Agile Testing: A Practical Guide for Testers and Agile Teams [Book] More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team [Book] More Fearless Change [Book] A Practical Guide to Testing [Book] Explore It!: Reduce Risk and Increase Confidence with Exploratory Testing Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Pim Elshoff, Software Developer at Procurios. Pim explains why developers should improve their communication skills when speaking with management, recalls his biggest mistake as a developer, and gives tips on explaining your side of an argument and how to listen to empathize. Helpful Links Follow Pim on Twitter Procurios Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans The Developer's Model for Talking to Managers at WebCamp Zagreb 2018 Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Morgan Senkal, Software Architect at Metal Toad. Morgan recalls a challenging 15-year-old legacy project that was reminiscent of a Stephen King story and explains what to think about when considering a software rewrite. Morgan and Robby keep a running analogy of technical debt and automotive repairs. Helpful links Metal Toad Seven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages by Bruce Tate Black House by Stephen King Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Eileen M. Uchitelle, Senior Software Engineer at Github and member of the Rails Core Team. You'll hear about Eileen's work upgrading Github from Rails 3.2 to 5.2, how Github prioritized the upgrade, and why teams should get ahead and upgrade to Rails 6. Helpful links Follow Eileen on Twitter Upgrading GitHub from Rails 3.2 to 5.2 Eileen's blog The Success of Open Source by Steven Weber Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Charity Majors, CTO of Honeycomb about her work as an Infrastructure Engineer, how Honeycomb was created, all about working and testing in production, and why software engineers should be "on call" for their code. Helpful links Follow Charity on Twitter Honeycomb The Honeycomb blog Charity's blog Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Database Reliability Engineering Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach. Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Sahil Lavingia, Founder and CEO of Gumroad. Sahil has been transparent about the challenges of building a company – speaking on VC investments, layoffs, and more. Sahil talks about why he built Gumroad, adjusting development processes when your staff shrinks, working with VCs, and the future of Gumroad, including the pros and cons of potentially open sourcing the product. Helpful Links Follow Sahil on Twitter Gumroad Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion Dollar Company High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Coraline Ada Ehmke, Principal Engineer at Stitch Fix and author of The Compassionate Coder. Coraline speaks about the social side of coding and empathy in open source and legacy projects. Robby and Coraline also walk through some possible scenarios on development teams and how to handle them with empathy. Helpful links: Follow Coraline on Twitter Coraline's website The Compassionate Coder by Coraline Ada Ehmke and Naomi Freeman Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin Fowler The Ruby Way by Hal Fulton & André Arko Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby sits down with James Smith, Co-Founder and CEO at Bugsnag, to discuss how to look at technical debt as a business cost, engineering processes in a startup vs. a stable company, and how the Bugsnag engineering team gets things done as a team with offices on two continents. Helpful Links: Bugsnag James Smith on Twitter Pre-Suasion by Robert Cialdini Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.

Robby speaks with Anna Filina, a software consultant at Zenika Montreal who specializes in legacy code. They discuss why engineers don't have to ask permission to write tests, why convincing people to get on board with your technical plans matters, and what a "software archaeologist" really does. Helpful links: Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers Zenika Montreal Anna Filina on Twitter Anna Filina on Youtube Subscribe to Maintainable on: Apple Podcasts Overcast Or search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts. Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.