Doomsday scenario: we figure out that genies can cheaply file for software patents & suddenly everything in software is patented, stuff like lazy initialization. Then the genies spend all their time negotiating about patent rights & no time coding.

Building Ikea furniture this weekend reminded me of two challenging life facts: * If it's not aligned, more force won't help. * If it's aligned, more force won't help. Take that, #996.

Interesting post: Pitching Hackathon Ideas: Oxymoron open.substack.com/pub/tidyfirs... by @kentbeck.com

If you demand that people control something they can't control, then expect them to control something else. If the mandate is "No Bugs!" without any social or technical change, then expect a response like "no *reported* bugs".

The flow of money represents the wants and needs of everyone in an economy. The problem with having billionaires is the same problem as trying to add huge numbers to tiny numbers using floating point. Except that in this case the “tiny numbers” that get lost are “normal people’s wants and needs”.

The number of assertions per test is power law distributed.

Refactoring is a key skill for good software design and it's also something you can get better at through practice. Check out my newly-published video training course which has lots of examples and exercises you can try courses.cd.training/courses/refa...

Please join us in celebrating a new presenter joining us on Modern Software Engineering, Sam Newman Technologist, independent consultant, speaker, and author of Building Microservices and Monolith To Microservices. Welcome, Sam.

Augmented coding is like ocean swimming vs pool swimming. In the pool you have straight lines & plenty of feedback. In the ocean you have to pop your head up & see where you're going periodically to actually make progress towards a goal. More strokes faster isn't going to get you there faster.

Augmented coding prediction--we're going to see team sizes shrink. XP has been dealing with this for 25 years, so g'head & ask if you'd like to know what comes next.

Beth certainly will!

@kentbeck.com of the day: Rhythm. Waiting until the right moment preserves energy and avoids clutter. Act with intensity when the time comes to act.

We’re proud to announce our 2nd #YOW25 keynote speaker: @kentbeck.com! His keynote “Sustainable Augmented Development” explores how we can keep development velocity high without sacrificing long-term sustainability. 🎟️ MEL 4-5 | BNE 8-9 | SYD 11-12 Dec yowcon.com

Running tests contains a fundamental information asymmetry seemingly ignored by most test runners. Test passes? NBD Information value much less than one bit. At most, increment some counter you'll show me later. When a test fails, though, that's a big deal! Show me that for sure.

3X Explore/Expand/Extract observation--criticism as a resource. I tried to use a tool yesterday & was angry when it didn't (yet) work for me. If you're Exploring & a user gets mad, that's such a gift. Just yesterday you a) didn't know quite what to do & b) weren't sure anyone cared what you did.

Coding agents aren't like juniors, they are like Amelia Bedelia

My favorite part of running so far is connecting with skeptics. People have a picture in their head of a “trans socialist”. It isn’t usually a curious motorcycle-riding homeowner with a pickup truck who is nearly impossible to offend. That moment of confusion can be the start of a conversation.

If your most effective management skill is insisting people work 80 hours a week, you might want to consider learning some new management skills.

The NUMBER ONE Principle of Software Design | @davefarley77.bsky.social & @kentbeck.com AVAILABLE NOW 📽️ Watch HERE 🔗 youtu.be/oRxHR-Ll4zQ

I don’t understand what any of this stuff going on in the culture means but I fully support it because it upsets maga nazis so much

Vocab word to avoid—inguinal

Join @kentbeck.com's #YOW25 1-day masterclass: Tidy Together: A Software Design Masterclass, and learn safe refactoring, design change mgmt & the human side of code. 📍 MEL 3 Dec yowcon.com/melbourne-20... 📍 SYD 10 Dec yowcon.com/sydney-2025/...

I contrast augmented coding with coding one finger at a time.

3X: Explore/Expand/Extract is thrown into higher relief by the introduction of the genie. Exploration is cheaper. The need to shift gears into Expand is starker. And the use of the genie to efficiently Extract is still a mystery.

“Cash only” is an extremely green flag for a bar.

Given past performance, they wouldn’t have any reason to worry. I am running for Congress because they should have a reason to worry.

I've known Beth for ages: wicked smart, understands tech really well, and cares about its impact on ordinary people. We need people in Congress like that.

I am running for Congress to fight for our country. I’m not here to be polite – I am here to stand up for the working class. Together we’ll prove what should’ve been obvious all along: trans people aren’t political props - we’re leaders. Visit bethfordemocracy.com to learn more about our campaign!

I'll admit to bias, but Beth will make a great addition to Congress.

When sociopaths ask, "What of this criticism is about me?" they automatically answer, "Nothing!" I don't claim to have good advice for sociopaths. For the rest of y'all, here's how I handle feedback without regretting my response: tidyfirst.substack.com/p/the-first-...

My BIGGEST REGRETS From A 40 Year Software Engineering Career | @davefarley77.bsky.social ❗️ AVAILABLE NOW 📽️ Watch 🔗 youtu.be/NaTEZ6Hq_6o

Daher: Stoppt den agil-industriellen Komplex, der Euch bzw. Eurem Management z.B. im Rahmen von SAFe diesen Bullshit verkauft - oder fragt sie, ob sie denn auch zwischenzeitlich eine "Zeitmaschine" erfunden hätten! 🤡

Another augmented coding experiment--how quickly can I produce library-quality Python code. Here is Ward Cunningham's Money example from my TDD book, all pythonicated & everything. github.com/KentBeck/Mon...

I enjoyed my convo with Dave. Folks who haven't lived with "assume no bugs" software, I urge you to try it at least once in your career.

Quitting programming as a career right now because of LLMs would be like quitting carpentry as a career thanks to the invention of the table saw.

Lovely illustration

Coding on green in TDD? Oh yes, you can. Within limits. www.youtube.com/watch?v=90VB...

In English we can say "inhibit" so why can't we say "hibit"? Meaning "to encourage".

I wanted to see if I could write library-quality code with a genie. tl;dr yes & it took a while. tidyfirst.substack.com/p/augmented-...

SF history in the gloaming

I went to San Francisco’s No Kings protest. The reports I’ve seen of 3000 protesters are low by at least an order of magnitude. 30 wide march, 10 rows a minute, for 2.5 hours that I was there.

Watch‪ @kentbeck.com‬ unpack coupling, cohesion & timing in Tidy First?—a thoughtful look at the economic and creative forces shaping software design. A must-watch for thoughtful developers.

@kentbeck.com is a legend in software engineering: and after coding for 52 years, he's never had more fun than now, he told me. Why? AI agents brought back the joy of creating software without the stuff that he's started to hate about coding. Watch/listen: • YouTube: youtu.be/aSXaxOdVtAQ (cont'd)

10 years ago I had an episode of cognitive decline. This is the story of it. How I got back is another tale. tidyfirst.substack.com/p/me-an-alge...

Executives: if I'm working for you I want you to delegate management & retain leadership. Definitely not the other way around.

This seemed like a balanced take to me but from other folks' reactions there is a lot more going on under the surface. Remember the First Feedback Filter--what of the reaction is about the topic & what is about those reacting?

Learning, the hard way, about Rust's memory layout constraints. Years of design habits torn to shreds in the gale. I'm just hoping it's worth it. I'm glad I have my genie to walk me through it.

Nice bit of coding genie marketing--when you ask for a plan & it lays tasks out week 1, week 2, week 3-5, & then 4 hours later you're done.

New augmented coding technique--I was having trouble writing complicated logic in a complicated language, so I had the genie write it in Python instead then told the genie to transliterate the tests & code. Much better!