Brought to You By: •⁠ Statsig ⁠ — ⁠ The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more. AI-accelerated development isn’t just about shipping faster: it’s about measuring whether, what you ship, actually delivers value. This is where modern experimentation with Statsig comes in. Check it out. •⁠ Linear ⁠ — ⁠ The system for modern product development. I had a jaw-dropping experience when I dropped in for the weekly “Quality Wednesdays” meeting at Linear. Every week, every dev fixes at least one quality isse, large or small. Even if it’s one pixel misalignment, like this one. I’ve yet to see a team obsess this much about quality. Read more about how Linear does Quality Wednesdays – it’s fascinating! — Martin Fowler is one of the most influential people within software architecture, and the broader tech industry. He is the Chief Scientist at Thoughtworks and the author of Refactoring and Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, and several other books. He has spent decades shaping how engineers think about design, architecture, and process, and regularly publishes on his blog, MartinFowler.com. In this episode, we discuss how AI is changing software development: the shift from deterministic to non-deterministic coding; where generative models help with legacy code; and the narrow but useful cases for vibe coding. Martin explains why LLM output must be tested rigorously, why refactoring is more important than ever, and how combining AI tools with deterministic techniques may be what engineering teams need. We also revisit the origins of the Agile Manifesto and talk about why, despite rapid changes in tooling and workflows, the skills that make a great engineer remain largely unchanged. — Timestamps (00:00) Intro (01:50) How Martin got into software engineering  (07:48) Joining Thoughtworks  (10:07) The Thoughtworks Technology Radar (16:45) From Assembly to high-level languages (25:08) Non-determinism  (33:38) Vibe coding (39:22) StackOverflow vs. coding with AI (43:25) Importance of testing with LLMs  (50:45) LLMs for enterprise software (56:38) Why Martin wrote Refactoring  (1:02:15) Why refactoring is so relevant today (1:06:10) Using LLMs with deterministic tools (1:07:36) Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (1:18:26) The Agile Manifesto  (1:28:35) How Martin learns about AI  (1:34:58) Advice for junior engineers  (1:37:44) The state of the tech industry today (1:42:40) Rapid fire round — The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode: • Vibe coding as a software engineer • The AI Engineering stack • AI Engineering in the real world • What changed in 50 years of computing — Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Supported by Our Partners • Sonar —  Code quality and code security for ALL code.  •⁠ Statsig ⁠ — ⁠ The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more. • Augment Code — AI coding assistant that pro engineering teams love. — Kent Beck is one of the most influential figures in modern software development. Creator of Extreme Programming (XP), co-author of The Agile Manifesto, and a pioneer of Test-Driven Development (TDD), he’s shaped how teams write, test, and think about code. Now, with over five decades of programming experience, Kent is still pushing boundaries—this time with AI coding tools. In this episode of Pragmatic Engineer, I sit down with him to talk about what’s changed, what hasn’t, and why he’s more excited than ever to code. In our conversation, we cover: • Why Kent calls AI tools an “unpredictable genie”—and how he’s using them • Why Kent no longer has an emotional attachment to any specific programming language • The backstory of The Agile Manifesto—and why Kent resisted the word “agile” • An overview of XP (Extreme Programming) and how Grady Booch played a role in the name  • Tape-to-tape experiments in Kent’s childhood that laid the groundwork for TDD • Kent’s time at Facebook and how he adapted to its culture and use of feature flags • And much more! — Timestamps (00:00) Intro (02:27) What Kent has been up to since writing Tidy First (06:05) Why AI tools are making coding more fun for Kent and why he compares it to a genie (13:41) Why Kent says languages don’t matter anymore (16:56) Kent’s current project building a small talk server (17:51) How Kent got involved with The Agile Manifesto (23:46) Gergely’s time at JP Morgan, and why Kent didn’t like the word ‘agile’ (26:25) An overview of “extreme programming” (XP)  (35:41) Kent’s childhood tape-to-tape experiments that inspired TDD (42:11) Kent’s response to Ousterhout’s criticism of TDD (50:05) Why Kent still uses TDD with his AI stack  (54:26) How Facebook operated in 2011 (1:04:10) Facebook in 2011 vs. 2017 (1:12:24) Rapid fire round — The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode: • — See the transcript and other references from the episode at ⁠⁠https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast⁠⁠ — Production and marketing by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://penname.co/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Brought to you by: • WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. • Sevalla — Deploy anything from preview environments to Docker images. • Chronosphere — The observability platform built for control. — Welcome to The Pragmatic Engineer! Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by Grady Booch, a true legend in software development. Grady is the Chief Scientist for Software Engineering at IBM, where he leads groundbreaking research in embodied cognition. He’s the mind behind several object-oriented design concepts, a co-author of the Unified Modeling Language, and a founding member of the Agile Alliance and the Hillside Group. Grady has authored six books, hundreds of articles, and holds prestigious titles as an IBM, ACM, and IEEE Fellow, as well as a recipient of the Lovelace Medal (an award for those with outstanding contributions to the advancement of computing). In this episode, we discuss: • What it means to be an IBM Fellow • The evolution of the field of software development • How UML was created, what its goals were, and why Grady disagrees with the direction of later versions of UML • Pivotal moments in software development history • How the software architect role changed over the last 50 years • Why Grady declined to be the Chief Architect of Microsoft – saying no to Bill Gates! • Grady’s take on large language models (LLMs) • Advice to less experienced software engineers • … and much more! — Timestamps (00:00) Intro (01:56) What it means to be a Fellow at IBM (03:27) Grady’s work with legacy systems (09:25) Some examples of domains Grady has contributed to (11:27) The evolution of the field of software development (16:23) An overview of the Booch method (20:00) Software development prior to the Booch method (22:40) Forming Rational Machines with Paul and Mike (25:35) Grady’s work with Bjarne Stroustrup (26:41) ROSE and working with the commercial sector (30:19) How Grady built UML with Ibar Jacobson and James Rumbaugh (36:08) An explanation of UML and why it was a mistake to turn it into a programming language (40:25) The IBM acquisition and why Grady declined Bill Gates’s job offer  (43:38) Why UML is no longer used in industry  (52:04) Grady’s thoughts on formal methods (53:33) How the software architect role changed over time (1:01:46) Disruptive changes and major leaps in software development (1:07:26) Grady’s early work in AI (1:12:47) Grady’s work with Johnson Space Center (1:16:41) Grady’s thoughts on LLMs  (1:19:47) Why Grady thinks we are a long way off from sentient AI  (1:25:18) Grady’s advice to less experienced software engineers (1:27:20) What’s next for Grady (1:29:39) Rapid fire round — The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episode: • The Past and Future of Modern Backend Practices https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-past-and-future-of-backend-practices  • What Changed in 50 Years of Computing https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/what-changed-in-50-years-of-computing  • AI Tooling for Software Engineers: Reality Check https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/ai-tooling-2024 — Where to find Grady Booch: • X: https://x.com/grady_booch • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gradybooch • Website: https://computingthehumanexperience.com Where to find Gergely: • Newsletter: https://www.pragmaticengineer.com/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/mrgergelyorosz • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gergelyorosz/ • X: https://x.com/GergelyOrosz — References and Transcripts: See the transcript and other references from the episode at https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/podcast — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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