Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers

Derick Schaefer, an expert in command-line interfaces and author of 'CLI: A Practical Guide to Creating Modern Command-Line Interfaces,' dives into the evolution of CLIs from their Unix origins to their modern resurgence. He explores the object-command model popularized by Git and discusses the importance of API-first design for modern tools. Derick also highlights the role of AI in enhancing CLIs and the significance of user experience in output formats. With insights on various programming languages for CLI development, he predicts a bright future for these tools.

Max Guernsey, III, a seasoned software architect, and Luniel de Beer, creator of Requirements Maturation Flow, delve into the crucial concept of readiness in software engineering. They discuss how many projects falter due to premature implementation, leading to chaos and misalignment. The duo introduces Requirements Maturation Flow, emphasizing shared understanding and tailored definitions of done and ready. Through practical examples, they illustrate how adopting RMF can alleviate technical debt and enhance team efficiency, paving the way for successful project outcomes.

Mojtaba Sarooghi, a Distinguished Product Architect at Queue-it, speaks with host Jeremy Jung about virtual waiting rooms for high-traffic events such as concerts and limited-quantity product releases. They explore using a virtual queue to prevent overloading systems, how most traffic is from bots, using edge workers to reduce requests to the customer's origin servers, and strategies for detecting bots in cooperation with vendors. Mojtaba discusses using AWS services like Elastic Load Balancing, DynamoDB, and Simple Notification Service, and explains why DynamoDB's eventual consistency is a good fit for their domain. To explain the approach, he walks us through how his team resolved an incident in which a traffic spike overloaded their services. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

In this episode, Benjamin Brial, CEO and co-founder of Cycloid, speaks with host Sriram Panyam about internal developer platforms (IDPs) and internal developer portals. The conversation explores how these platforms address the growing challenges of DevOps scalability, multi-cloud complexity, and cloud waste, all of which organizations face as they grow. Benjamin begins by framing the core problems that IDPs solve: DevOps struggling to scale beyond small teams, the complexity of managing hybrid environments across on-premises, public cloud, and private cloud infrastructure, and the significant issue of cloud waste (averaging 35-45% according to major analysts). IDPs can serve as a bridge between DevOps teams and developers, providing access to tools, cloud resources, and automation for users who aren't DevOps or cloud experts. The technical discussion covers essential IDP components including service catalogs, versioning engines, platform orchestration, asset inventory, and FinOps/GreenOps modules. The episode concludes with Benjamin's practical advice: organizations should focus on understanding their specific pain points rather than following market trends, starting with simple use cases such as landing zones before building complex solutions, and adopt a GitOps-first approach as the foundation for any IDP implementation. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Srujana Merugu, an AI researcher with extensive experience at tech giants like Google and Amazon, dives into the intricacies of building LLM-based applications. She clarifies concepts such as generative vs. predictive AI and explains the importance of transformer architecture. The discussion covers practical use cases and where LLMs might not be optimal. Srujana also shares insights on model selection, safety guardrails, and emerging trends like multi-sensory AI. Plus, she offers tips on staying current in the fast-evolving AI landscape.

Philip Kiely, the software developer relations lead at BaseTen, dives into the realm of multi-agent AI. He advocates for building AI-native products through the composition of multiple models and agents that take action, moving beyond simple ChatGPT interfaces. Kiely highlights the shift to custom solutions driven by domain-specific needs and economic considerations. He emphasizes the importance of safety, trust, and iterative experimentation in AI engineering while discussing practical applications like a D&D assistant evolving into a multimodal agent.

Flavia Saldanha, a consulting data engineer and architect specializing in AI readiness, joins to discuss the evolution of data engineering. She highlights the shift from treating data as a service to a product, stressing the importance of ownership and context. Flavia explains modern lakehouse architectures and the integration of vector databases to manage unstructured data for AI. She emphasizes the need for data engineers to embrace product thinking, governance, and NLP skills, positioning AI as an augmenting co-pilot rather than a replacement.

Join veteran software developer Dave Thomas, co-founder of the Pragmatic Bookshelf and author of The Pragmatic Programmer, as he delves into the world of eBook infrastructure. He explores the evolution of formats like EPUB and Mobi, the importance of reflowable layouts, and how technology shapes the authoring process. Dave highlights the significance of human involvement in writing and how AI tools can assist post-creation. With insights on author workflows and the interplay of writing and technology, he shares a vision for the future of publishing.

Jennings Anderson, a Software Engineer with Meta Platforms, and Amy Rose, the Chief Technology Officer at Overture Maps Foundation, speak with host Gregory M. Kapfhammer about the Overture Maps project, which creates reliable, easy-to-use, and interoperable open map data. After exploring the foundations of geospatial information systems, Gregory and his guests dive deep into the implementation of Overture Maps through features like the Global Entity Reference System (GERS). In addition to discussing the organizational structure of the Overture Maps Foundation and the need for a unified database of geospatial data, Jennings and Amy explain how to implement applications using data from Overture Maps. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

Mark Williamson, CTO of Undo and an expert in AI-assisted debugging, dives into the transformative role of AI in debugging processes. He highlights AI's ability to analyze data, automate tedious tasks, and enhance debugging strategies. The discussion covers advanced tools like ChatDBG and time-travel debugging, which allow developers to rewind execution for deeper insights. Mark also emphasizes the benefits for developers of all experience levels and warns of potential risks, including hallucinations and security issues, stressing the importance of human oversight.