Latest Technical debt Podcast Episodes

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Esther Olatunde - AI's Role in Evolving Software Engineering Practices

Maintainable - April 16, 2024 07:05 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
In this captivating episode of the Maintainable Software Podcast, host Robby Russell delves deep with Esther Olatunde, Senior Product Engineer at Intercom, into the realms of software maintenance, technical debt, and the impact of AI on software development. The discussion kicks off with Esther'...

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Robbie Wagner - Whiskey, Front-End, and Whatnot

Maintainable - March 26, 2024 07:05 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Starting off, Robbie Russell and Robbie Wagner bonding over the complexities of their names in the coffee queue. They dive into the essence of maintainable software, debating the importance of recent commits and the dangers of a single-contributor project. Tech debt, the ever-looming shadow o...

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Irina Nazarova - Investing in Innovation: The Consultancy's Guide to Growth

Maintainable - March 12, 2024 07:05 - 45 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
In the latest episode of Maintainable, Robby Russell has a fascinating conversation with Irina Nazarova, the CEO of Evil Martians, a name that resonates with innovation and bold strides in the software development world. They dive deep into what it takes to maintain not just code, but also the d...

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Kyle Daigle - Scaling Up with AI: A New Era of Code Maintenance

Maintainable - March 05, 2024 08:05 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Kyle Daigle, the Chief Operating Officer at GitHub. They dive into the evolution of software development from the perspective of maintaining and scaling software within large organizations like GitHub. Kyle talks about the importance of simplicity and readability in code ov...

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Jon Moniaci - Can We Draw A Boundary?

Maintainable - February 27, 2024 08:05 - 53 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby speaks to the Senior Software Engineer at Perchwell, Jon Moniaci. They discuss the delicate balance between innovation and stability in software development. Jon emphasizes the importance of fostering an environment where engineers can experiment without fear, advocating for a culture of d...

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Chad Fowler - How Small Can We Make This Problem

Maintainable - February 20, 2024 08:05 - 58 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a candid chat with Chad Fowler, the General Partner & CTO at BlueYard Capital. They delve into the nuances of software maintenance, the evolution and challenges of managing software projects, and insights from Chad's tenure as CTO of Wunderlist. They discuss the importance of building ...

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John Nunemaker-How Scary Is This Change?

Maintainable - February 13, 2024 08:05 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a conversation with John Nunemaker, the Owner at "Box Out Sports" and "Fewer & Faster". They dive into the basics of maintaining software projects, highlighting the crucial importance of keeping dependencies and versions up to date. John shares his wealth of experience from his time at...

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John Nunemaker - How Scary Is This Change?

Maintainable - February 13, 2024 08:05 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a conversation with John Nunemaker, the Owner at "Box Out Sports" and "Fewer & Faster". They dive into the basics of maintaining software projects, highlighting the crucial importance of keeping dependencies and versions up to date. John shares his wealth of experience from his time at...

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Jemma Issroff - Running the Parser in the Rain

Maintainable - February 06, 2024 08:05 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a conversation with Jemma Issroff, a Senior Software Engineer, speaker and the author of the book, “Ruby Garbage Collection in Under Two Hours” They delve into the intricacies of well-maintained software, and Jemma brings her wealth of experience, particularly from her involvement in P...

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Jemma Issroff-Running the Parser in the Rain

Maintainable - February 06, 2024 08:05 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a conversation with Jemma Issroff, a Senior Software Engineer, speaker and the author of the book, “Ruby Garbage Collection in Under Two Hours” They delve into the intricacies of well-maintained software, and Jemma brings her wealth of experience, particularly from her involvement in P...

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Jeanine Soterwood - Helping Clients Understand Maintenance Work

Maintainable - January 30, 2024 08:05 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with the Software Development Team Lead at Thoughtbot, Jeanine Soterwood. Unraveling the intricacies of Ruby on Rails, they explore the often overlooked importance of keeping apps up-to-date and maintaining a robust test suite. The conversation weaves through the delicate balanc...

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Andrew Atkinson - Maintainable... Databases?

Maintainable - January 23, 2024 08:05 - 53 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby engages with independent consultant and author, Andrew Atkinson, delving into the intricate world of software development and database maintenance. The duo kicks off with a profound exploration of the importance of swift and intuitive change management in software, unraveling the key trait...

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Jimmy Koppel - Aspects of Good Code

Maintainable - January 16, 2024 08:05 - 44 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby engages in a captivating conversation with the CEO at Mirdin and UpToSpeed, Jimmy Koppel. They delve into the transformative power of evolvable code, shedding light on its myriad benefits and how it contributes to an enriching coding experience. Drawing inspiration from Jimmy's insightful ...

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Hila Fish - Maintainable Infrastructure Code, Culture, and Documentation

Maintainable - January 09, 2024 08:05 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Senior DevOps Engineer, Hila Fish. They start off by discussing the key characteristics of maintainable infrastructure code. Hila shared insights on providing software engineering teams with the necessary space for exploration while maintaining essential guardrails to ensur...

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Jacob Aronoff - At Least One Person Who Cares To See It Through

Maintainable - November 21, 2023 08:05 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Staff Software Engineer at Lightstep from ServiceNow, Jacob Aronoff. Their conversation delves into the vital signs of a thriving open source software project. They unpack the characteristics of well-maintained open source endeavors, emphasizing the importance of a passiona...

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Oliver Drotbohm - Modulithic Applications

Maintainable - November 14, 2023 08:05 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Oliver Drotbohm, a Staff 2 Engineer at VMware. They explore the essence of maintainable software, pinpointing understandability and modifiability as its foundational pillars. Drawing from Dr. Carola Lilienthal's "Sustainable Software Architecture: Analyze and Reduce Technic...

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Colin Campbell - The Daily Habits of Effective Engineers

Maintainable - November 07, 2023 08:05 - 40 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Colin Campbell, the Director of Engineering at Tucows. Colin delves into the professional ethos of software development, emphasizing that the caliber of an engineer’s work is a reflection of their daily habits. He stressed the importance of humility for software engineers, ...

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Dave Bryant Copeland - Quantifying the Carrying Cost

Maintainable - October 03, 2023 07:05 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with the Author of Sustainable Web Development with Ruby on Rails, Dave Bryant Copeland (he/him/his). Dave is a Senior Software Engineer and speaker. Reflecting on his experience, Dave believes that well-maintained software is software that people understand what it does, how it...

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Cameron Jacoby - Am I Learning From This?

Maintainable - September 26, 2023 07:05 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Cameron Jacoby (she/her/hers), a Senior Full-Stack Engineer at BetterUp, a platform that uses world-class coaching and science-backed solutions that help people grow personally and professionally. The one thing that Cameron says should stand out about code being maintainabl...

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Adriana Villela - On Being a Serial Refactorer

Maintainable - August 22, 2023 07:05 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Adriana Villela, a Senior Developer Advocate at Lightstep. Adriana highlights that well-maintained software should be software that one can understand when they go into the code even if they’re not super familiar with it. She shares why she values being a serial refactorer ...

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Ahmed Wasfy - Thriving as an Engineering Manager

Maintainable - August 08, 2023 07:05 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Ahmed Wasfy (he/him/his), the Senior Development Manager at Amazon. On the topic of the common characteristics of well maintained software, Ahmed feels that one critical thing is that software should serve a purpose in terms of what values it adds and the trackable business...

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Naomi Ceder - People-Centric Community Building

Maintainable - July 04, 2023 12:05 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Independent Python Instructor and Consultant, Naomi Ceder (she/her/hers). Naomi values clear organization, separation of concern and capsulation, visibility instrumentation, and tests when it comes to creating a legacy piece of code that will be continuously useful. She wil...

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Nadia Odunayo - Don't Try to Solve a Pain Point For a Problem You Aren't Experiencing

Maintainable - June 19, 2023 07:05 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Nadia Odunayo (she/her/hers), the Founder and CEO at The StoryGraph. Nadia starts off by highlighting solid test coverage, up-to-date gem language platform versions, all security patches, and proper documentation as some of the few common characteristics of maintainable sof...

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Daniela Baron - About Those Docs

Maintainable - June 12, 2023 07:05 - 49 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Senior Staff Engineer, Daniela Baron (she/her). Daniela starts by listing the following things about the characteristics of well-maintained software; it should be easy for new people to join and get the project running on their laptops just by following the README, it shoul...

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Cory House - Finding Opportunities for Improvement

Maintainable - June 05, 2023 07:05 - 35 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
Robby has a chat with Cory House (he/him/his), the Founder at Reactjsconsulting.com, a software developer, author, speaker, and consultant. “I love the old saying that we write software for humans. So, I think about that regularly”, Cory says about what the maintainability of software is all abo...

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Avery Quinn - Can You Quantify the Impact?

Maintainable - May 22, 2023 07:05 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
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 refinem...

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Carlos Blé - Código Sostenible

Maintainable - April 24, 2023 07:05 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
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)...

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Lena Reinhard - How Will People Get Stuff Done?

Maintainable - April 17, 2023 07:05 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
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 T...

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Eric Normand - Grokking Simplicity

Maintainable - March 13, 2023 07:05 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
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 ser...

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Henrik Warne - There is No Software Maintenance

Maintainable - March 06, 2023 08:05 - 42 minutes ★★★★★ - 29 ratings
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 highlig...

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