

Maintainable
Robby Russell
Do you feel like you're hitting a wall with your existing software projects? Are you curious to hear how other people are navigating this? You're not alone.
On the Maintainable Software Podcast, Robby speaks with seasoned practitioners who have overcome the technical and cultural problems often associated with software development.
Our guests will share stories in each episode and outline tangible, real-world approaches to software challenges. In turn, you'll uncover new ways of thinking about how to improve your software project's maintainability.
On the Maintainable Software Podcast, Robby speaks with seasoned practitioners who have overcome the technical and cultural problems often associated with software development.
Our guests will share stories in each episode and outline tangible, real-world approaches to software challenges. In turn, you'll uncover new ways of thinking about how to improve your software project's maintainability.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jun 10, 2019 • 39min
Lisa Crispin: Agile Testing & Technical Debt
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 LinksFollow Lisa Crispin on TwitterAgile Testing FellowAgile Testing with Lisa CrispinDevTestOps CommunityThe 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 TestingSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Loving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach.Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Jun 3, 2019 • 41min
Pim Elshoff: Refactoring How Engineers Communicate With Management
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 LinksFollow Pim on TwitterProcuriosDomain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric EvansThe Developer's Model for Talking to Managers at WebCamp Zagreb 2018Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityLoving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach.Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

May 27, 2019 • 25min
Morgan Senkal: Using Epics to Improve Code Quality Within Sprints
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 linksMetal ToadSeven Languages in Seven Weeks: A Pragmatic Guide to Learning Programming Languages by Bruce TateBlack House by Stephen KingSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityLoving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach.Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

May 20, 2019 • 34min
Eileen M. Uchitelle: Upgrading Ruby on Rails At Github And How To Stay Updated
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 linksFollow Eileen on TwitterUpgrading GitHub from Rails 3.2 to 5.2Eileen's blogThe Success of Open Source by Steven WeberSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityLoving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach.Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

May 13, 2019 • 34min
Charity Majors: Deploys Are Just The Beginning
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 linksFollow Charity on TwitterHoneycombThe Honeycomb blogCharity's blogSapiens: A Brief History of HumankindDatabase Reliability EngineeringSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityLoving Maintainable? Leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts to help grow our reach.Brought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

May 6, 2019 • 45min
Sahil Lavingia: Pushing Forward Through Technical Debt After a Massive Layoff
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 LinksFollow Sahil on TwitterGumroadReflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion Dollar CompanyHigh Output Management by Andrew S. GroveHow to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale CarnegieThinking Fast and Slow by Daniel KahnemanSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityBrought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Apr 29, 2019 • 30min
Coraline Ada Ehmke: The Role Of Empathy In Engineering Teams
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 TwitterCoraline's websiteThe Compassionate Coder by Coraline Ada Ehmke and Naomi FreemanPatterns of Enterprise Application Architecture by Martin FowlerThe Ruby Way by Hal Fulton & André ArkoSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityBrought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Apr 22, 2019 • 37min
James Smith: What if We Measured Software with a Stability Score?
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:BugsnagJames Smith on TwitterPre-Suasion by Robert CialdiniSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityBrought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.

Apr 15, 2019 • 36min
Anna Filina: How Every Decision Introduces Technical Debt
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 FeathersZenika MontrealAnna Filina on TwitterAnna Filina on YoutubeSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord CommunityBrought to you by the team at Planet Argon.
Subscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Keep up to date with the Maintainable Podcast by joining the newsletter.


