How much complexity should developers really be expected to hold in their heads, and what practices or architectures genuinely reduce it?

It's absolutely astonishing: In just about 13 years, Norway has skyrocketed from virtually no sales of zero-emission battery electric vehicles to nearly 100% of all new passenger car purchases.

I feel like I've been able to take my technical coaching to a new level after Marian Hartman 's Green Path masterclass this summer. I had a really good experience today with a team learning refactoring.

The team at the Modern Software Engineering Channel are helping me to publish a new free guide - this time for essential refactorings. There are a lot of fancy tools out there and keyboard shortcuts you could learn - and I find _these_ moves are foundational. www.subscribepage.com/mustlearncor...

Refactoring is one of the most misunderstood, and most feared, practices in software engineering. 🧵 1/5

Is Testing Still a Developer's Job in an AI World? @emilybache.com and I answer One Big Question on the Modern Software Engineering channel @modernswe.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiJ-...

"When we find a logic error in our code by exploratory testing, we don’t just fix the bug. We write a regression test in case a future change breaks it again. When we find a code quality bug, we should add a check that catches it as soon as it reappears.." codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/c...

New video today - Demo of a classic legacy code technique, and a suggested update - youtu.be/hwr9bVyXkTY

New video with me and @kevlin.bsky.social discussing developers testing in an age of AI - would be interested in my tester friends' perspective youtu.be/MiJ-GnvVs60?...

Is Testing Still A Developer's Job In An AI World? | @kevlin.bsky.social & @emilybache.com 📽️ AVAILABLE NOW WATCH HERE ➡️ youtu.be/MiJ-GnvVs60

Solar made the fastest energy leap in history. 🌞⚡ 8 yrs to reach 1,000 TWh, then just 3 to surge past 2,000. Wind’s not far behind. What coal & hydro needed decades, solar did in a decade. Exponential change ignores politics & ideology — once it starts, it doesn’t stop. #EnergyTransition #Disruption

More blogging! I don't want AI agents controlling my laptop. Not because that's not useful, but because it's incredibly hard (impossible?) to do securely: sophiebits.com/2025/09/09/a...

As a tech lead or senior developer, you’re expected to mentor and train more junior teammembers - coaching is already part of your job. Technical coaching is a skill that can be learnt. Emily Bache will hold a masterclass at NewCrafts conference: buff.ly/NV0Z5Ei

Wrote up a bit more on this. Am I right/wrong?

Will the absence of public transport infrastructure in North America mark the moment its citizens notice how far their continent has fallen behind?

"how familiar these practices look: small steps (limited WIP), rapid feedback loops, continuous testing, code review, refactoring, integration etc. Remind you of anything, perhaps something a little extreme? Now, that surely can’t be a coincidence?" codemanship.wordpress.com/2025/09/03/e...

I want as many developers as possible to experience the joy of refactoring their code when they have a good test suite by their side. It's infectious. You'd want that feeling all the time.

In two weeks (16th & 23rd September) I will run a Learning Hours Masterclass course from the Samman society together with @emilybache.com . If you have run a few learning hour sessions with your team and want to dive deeper, then this is for you. See sammancoaching.org/training/lea...

A lot of people were asking about examples for my "Augmented Coding - A Pattern Language" post. So I was iterating over it and added some. I also added new patterns. gregorriegler.com/2025/07/12/a...

Europe is burning: wildfires are forcing families from their homes in Greece, Spain, and Portugal. And yet, extremist politicians are trying to kill the EU’s plan to slash emissions by 90% by 2040. Let’s send our leaders a clear message: No rollback on climate action! 👉 go.wemove.eu/cutemissions

Can We Fix Software Engineering Estimation? @kentbeck.com and I discuss One Big Question on the Modern Software Engineering channel @modernswe.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTpn...

Everything I know about good #API #design

No, Your Domains and Bounded Contexts Don’t Map 1 on 1. It sounds clean and logical, but it’s wrong. Read about it in my latest article: verraes.net/2025/08/doma...

NEW POST I'm about to head off on travels for the next few weeks. Before I go, here's a bunch of scattered thoughts about Gen-AI and software development martinfowler.com/articles/202...

In 1987, Robert Solow quipped: “You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” Today GenAI may face a similar paradox: big hype, little productivity impact – plus a twist: the tech isn’t yet fit for the jobs we want it to do. blog.robbowley.net/2025/08/27/l...

I found this video about enforcing a TDD process on a coding agent interesting and helpful: youtu.be/IVdYaVKuekk?...

How do you spread technical coaching to more teams in an organization? New video today: youtu.be/u-oRiXDKIrE

Also: good software is easy enough to change and maintain. THIS is something us developers learn very quickly. Those new to software always assume building is the most difficult part of creating software. Well, it rarely is! (Another counter-intuitive characteristic!)

By linking exurban residents with opportunities across the Randstad, the Trekvaartbrug improves safety, liveability and accessibility in a growing region. After all, providing a diversity of mobility choices—even the one to leave the car at home—is what ultimately creates a more prosperous society.🔚

TDD should be more widely used - I recently recorded a conversation with @davefarley77.bsky.social and as ever we found lots to discuss about TDD. We don't always completely agree either: youtu.be/6yb7jKpxTjM?...

Interesting question raised in a q&a today: what do we do about the fact that engineers don't feel like they're learning anything on the job except how to use AI now because that's all anyone in leadership is focused on

After a community conversation about #AI discussions going off the rails, I created a 'safe space' framework for discussing practical use without getting pulled into extremesville. It acknowledges the concerns (ethics, environment, hype) while protecting space to discuss the practical side. 1/2

And ReSharper out of process!!!

🚀 ApproveJ v0.9.7 was released 🧽 new strings scrubber allows to scrub known strings 🧽 new masking replacement turns "Whatever74" into "Aaaaaaaa11" 🐞 the approval error now has expected and actual in the right order 👉 github.com/mkutz/Approv... #approvaltesting #snapshottesting #java #jvm

Astral (the VC-backed company behind the popular open source Python tools uv, ruff and ty) have unveiled the first hints at their business model today - pyx, a private package registry for companies that use Python My notes here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Aug/13/pyx/

I also have some capacity for training and technical coaching (Test-Driven Development, Agile Engineering, Domain Driven Design). Contact me to discuss more details if you are interested: DM here or [email protected] [2/2] #tdd #ddd #agile

“She didn’t just open doors for women in tech, she built the doors and handed out the keys.” www.bcs.org/articles-opi...

This is the essence of the test-driven design process - it's design strictly driven by usage, starting always with usage in a test, and repeated all the way down. If we don't need it to pass the test, we don't declare it. In this sense, it can be described by some simple, enforceable rules. (5/5)

This is my favorite thing about social media. I love being exposed to brilliant ideas by brilliant people and I feel so lucky to be a part of such fulfilling social circles 🥰❤️

This is something of a story. There's a link at the end. Hopefully, being upfront about the link will help you come with me on this short journey. Vibe Coding became the term de jour recently. 1/10

This is the single best piece I've read on "replacing coders with AI," it fully dispells the myth from the perspective of a software engineer and does so in a calm, reasonable way. colton.dev/blog/curing-...

Published: Why do Teams think Single-branch Development Does not Work? Despite research showing that Continuous Integration indirectly leads to better quality and stability, implying the practice of trunk-based development, teams believe this cannot work for them. thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...

We recently ran an experiment to explore how far GenAI can currently be pushed toward autonomously developing high-quality, up-to-date software without human intervention, and gather observations about where it breaks down. martinfowler.com/articles/pus...

Using automated refactoring tools is one of the key missing skills of most devs.

New video today - demo of a legacy code technique - youtu.be/EMzOb-WcUwQ

Tests tell us our software can work. Observability tells us our software IS working.

Will AI Code Create MOUNTAINS Of Technical Debt? | @trishagee.bsky.social & @stevesmithtech.bsky.social AVAILABLE NOW 📽️ WATCH HERE: youtu.be/oz7aIFfHXRw

Interesting, but also the funniest bit is the deadpan “the trigger for the CPU spikes both times was our CEO logging in. We re-deployed to get a clean start, permanently banned him from the service, and moved on.”

Published: Why do Teams not practice Continuous Integration? Everyone in the IT industry agrees that Continuous Integration is a required practice to realise quality and stability. Yet, few teams have truly implemented Continuous Integration. Why is that? thinkinglabs.io/articles/202...