Maintainable

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 WorldResources Mentioned:The Phoenix Project by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford Team Topologies - by Matthew Skelton and Manuel PaisThe Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'  by Sidney DekkerConfident Ruby By Avdi GrimmExceptional Ruby By Avdi Grimm Helpful LinksAvdi’s LinkedInAvdi’s TwitterAvdi on GitHubAvdi on YouTubeGraceful.DevSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

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 BrooksHelpful LinksAran’s LinkedInAran’s TwitterAran’s WebsiteArcheraSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

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 LinksJerod’s LinkedInJerod’s TwitterChangelog MediaChangelog PodcastsRobby's appearance on ChangelogSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

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 LinksIdit's TwitterIdit's LinkedInSolo.io and on twitterIdit's GithubIdit's Book Recommendation: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben HorowitzSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

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 LinksEmily's TwitterEmily's LinkedInEmily's WebsiteEmily's GithubWNB.rb @wnb_rb, contact organizersEmily's talk at RubyConf 2021: To mock, or not to mock?Sandi Metz: Making is Easy, Mending is a ChallengeMongo Ruby DriverEmily's Book Recommendation: Radical Candor by Kim ScottSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

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 LinksJean's TwitterJean's LinkedInAkita SoftwareAkita on TwitterBook Recommendation: Sick in the Head by Judd ApatowSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

Robby speaks with Shaundai Person, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix and creator of TypeScript for JavaScript devs.Shaundai brought a treasure trove of insights, starting from her fascinating transition from sales to tech, straight into the heart of what makes code maintainable. She's a fan of making things simpler (think Legos, not knitted castles), and her take on the modular build of software components is something every developer should hear.Did you know that your past experiences, no matter how unrelated they seem, can shape you into a better engineer? Shaundai's journey is proof of that, and she shares how skills from sales greatly enhance her team dynamics and project leadership in the tech world.We also delve into why documenting the journey of your code - the good, the bad, and the decisions - is crucial for your future self and others who will walk in your codebase footsteps. Plus, Shaundai gives her candid view on the importance of feedback and the art of soliciting it constructively.Don't miss out on this blend of technical wisdom and life lessons. Tune in to get your regular dose of Maintainable wisdom sprinkled with my special brand of humor. Helpful LinksShaundai's TwitterShaundai's LinkedInShaundai's PolyworkTypeScript for JavaScript Developers, that Shaundai is building.Talk: Simple Made Easy by Rich HickeyBook Recommendation: Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized world by David EpsteinSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

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 Links47 DegreesRe-Engineering Legacy SoftwareFollow Chris on TwitterBook Recommendation: Sherlock Holmes Series by Sir Arthur Conan DoyleSubscribe to Maintainable on:Apple PodcastsOvercastSpotifyOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

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 LinksSwizec on TwitterSwizec on LinkedInServerless for Frontend EngineersThe Senior Mindset SeriesTiaBlog post: How to rewrite your app while growing to a $100,000,000 series BSwizec's book recommendations:How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale CarnegieThinking in Bets by Annie DukeSubscribe to Maintainable on:SpotifyApple PodcastsOvercastOr search "Maintainable" wherever you stream your podcasts.Join the discussion in the Maintainable Discord Community 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.

In this episode of Maintainable, Robby Russell chats with Heidi Waterhouse, Transformation Advocate at LaunchDarkly and contributor to "Docs for Developers." Heidi shares her insights on the crucial role documentation plays in software maintenance, how to manage documentation debt, and why "the best diff is a red diff."Episode Highlights[00:00:53] Heidi's Take on Maintainable Software: Discussing the characteristics of well-maintained software, with a focus on modularity and context-aware decisions.[00:02:16] Documenting Context in Code: The importance of leaving behind the rationale for past decisions to help future developers understand trade-offs.[00:04:09] Stress vs. Creativity: The mental firewall between stress-driven fixes and creative problem-solving and how it affects documentation.[00:05:53] Making Documentation a Habit: Techniques for leaving helpful notes in code and why documenting as you go is crucial.[00:07:12] Documentation Debt: Exploring the concept of documentation technical debt and how it parallels code technical debt.[00:09:49] Pruning Documentation: Strategies for regularly reviewing and archiving outdated documentation to keep the signal strong.[00:12:02] Templating Documentation: How to start documenting without the fear of a blank page using templates and examples.[00:14:01] Where to Document: Tips on deciding the best place to store documentation and ensuring it is easily accessible.[00:18:47] The Pitfalls of Video Tutorials: Why video tutorials can be a time bomb and the importance of searchable, updateable documentation.[00:21:12] Starting with Public Speaking: Heidi's journey into public speaking, starting with anger-driven topics and evolving to educational resources.[00:26:26] Dealing with Rejection in Public Speaking: The reality of talk proposal rejections and why it's not a reflection of your value as a speaker.[00:30:14] Code Ergonomics: How the physical layout of code and workspace can affect developer productivity and reduce context switching.[00:36:39] Improving Documentation Culture: Advice for new team members on finding allies and starting small to improve documentation practices.[00:40:15] Integrating Documentation with Code: Making documentation part of the code review process and defining it as part of the "done" criteria.Key TakeawaysDocumentation is a crucial part of maintaining software, and its importance should not be underestimated.Regularly pruning and archiving outdated documentation helps keep the information relevant and useful.The best way to combat documentation debt is by making documentation an integral part of the development process.Public speaking can start small and doesn’t require expertise—passion and personal experiences are powerful drivers.Helpful LinksHeidi's WebsiteHeidi's TwitterHeidi's LinkedInOrder the new book, Docs for Developers, that Heidi is a co-author ofBlog post: When you stare into the blank page, it stares back at youVideo: Lillian Gilbreth: First Lady of Engineering  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.