We seldomly dive deep into discussing any particular programming language on this show. However, today we are making an exception, and we talk with Chrissy LeMaire about PowerShell. Chrissy is a GitHub star, double Microsoft MVP, and a co-author of the book Learn dbatools in a Month of Lunches . She is currently a blue teamer who uses PowerShell to make the world more secure. Chrissy shares some neat PowerShell secrets that transform this framework from an ideal programming language for beginner...
Jun 28, 2021•43 min
We behave with the cloud as a subset of technology like a teen who just learned how to drive. We are at the point where capabilities have far exceeded the ability to comprehend consequences. We have the power in our hands to change our life and other people's lives both in positive and negative ways. However, we lack the experience to foresee these results. Today we talk with Bobby Allen, Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Turbonomic and cloud therapist. He helps us understand the advantag...
Jun 14, 2021•47 min
Technical debt is a recurring theme of this show. We talk about it almost as often as it pops out in any legacy code! Today we go back to discussing technical debt with Jim Humelsine . Jim has been a software development professional since 1985. Jim's passion is design patterns, but he recently expanded his interest to software practices and procedures. Jim is also an economics and especially game theory enthusiast, and on top of everything, he is a trombone player! We dive deep with Jim into th...
May 31, 2021•47 min
Many legacy systems lack adequate test coverage. They might not have much coverage at all, or the existing tests might be inefficient or paint a wrong picture about the stability of the system. Enhancing test coverage in legacy applications is a complex task with many pitfalls. Today we talk with Floyd Hilton , a software developer with many years of experience in multiple domains, including semiconductor manufacturing, financial aid delivery, energy conservation, and healthcare. He co-founded t...
May 17, 2021•33 min
There has been a noticeable uptick in the adoption of public cloud providers. At the same time, the voices advocating for the abandonment of traditional data centers are getting louder. Keeping servers around to keep running their business might be overkill for many companies. For others, it could be the only reasonable choice. And even if you decide to transition to the cloud, how do you know which of its features you need? Today we talk to Sarah Musick , the systems engineering principal at Cl...
May 03, 2021•49 min
Common Lisp was written in the 80s as a kind of an amalgam of the existing Lisps at the time. To make sure the Common Lisp would stay relevant, it was made backward compatible so that existing legacy systems could run on it. One thing in common to these big old systems like Lisp is a lot more mutation, and the cool thing about this legacy is that it has a baked experience – it learns and it has learned. Today we talk to Eric Normand , an experienced functional programmer, trainer, speaker, and c...
Apr 19, 2021•50 min
Software engineers perceive that technology advances in an orderly, linear fashion. This makes the novelties very attractive. However, the reality is that we tend to go through technology in cycles. Recognizing this is crucial for understanding how to make the right technical decisions while preserving the value of the old technology. Is it better to build from scratch or build on what you have? When do you invest in something brand new, and when do you lean onto the foundations of the existing ...
Apr 05, 2021•52 min
For most teams, dependency freshness is a pain that is often ignored. “If it works –don’t change it” is the prevailing attitude, but as a lot of applications become web-focused, dependencies inevitably start gaining traction. Why does dependency freshness matter, and how do we proactively stay on top of it? Today we present Freshli - the dependency freshness tool we have been working on. The microphone goes to the team involved: Cassandra Carothers , Technical Sales Manager here at Corgibytes , ...
Mar 22, 2021•50 min
When developers talk about what they find exciting, they usually talk about new things. Very little content is about the actual job, about working in the existing system. When they do talk about legacy, they usually focus on how much they hate it. Where does that animosity come from and how do we confront it? Today we get to the bottom of it with Barry O’Sullivan . Barry is a modern web development contractor with 15 years of experience in legacy web applications. He is the founder of DDIE and t...
Mar 08, 2021•49 min
We like to think that technology is our objective and neutral assistant, our faithful lieutenant constrained with science and armed with cold, hard data. But this is incorrect. Technology reflects the attitudes of humans who created it. It contains our biases and our preconceived notions. It reflects who we are while distorting our perception of who we think we are, transforming our impulse for binary simplifications into the strict binary framework of ones and zeroes. Inevitably, this leaves so...
Feb 22, 2021•49 min
Many analytical models can help you to measure some aspects of the quality of your codebase. However, only a combination of these models can give you complete information about your code's integrity and the real-world necessity for its improvement. Today we talk with Dan Sturtevant , the CEO of Silverthread Inc and a Technology and Operations Management Researcher at the Harvard Business School . Dan shares with us the solutions for diagnosing software health and aligning it with business perfor...
Feb 08, 2021•47 min
Ruby on Rails is a fast-moving community and it is not always easy to keep up with it. Given the efficiency of the framework, however, it is well worth trying. Today we talk to Robby Russell , creator of Oh My Z Shell , host of Maintainable software podcast, and CEO of Planet Argon – a software consultancy that helps organizations improve their existing Ruby on Rails applications. We chat with Robby about his own beginnings, the creation of the Oh My Z Shell, the early days of Ruby on Rails, and...
Jan 25, 2021•56 min
Security is a big topic with many facets, and this is especially true for microservices. Microservices deployment has been around for some time, but security didn’t get much attention from developers – they simply trusted the network. Today we talk with Prabath Siriwardena and Nuwan Dias , authors of Microservices Security in Action * and deputy CTOs of the WSO2 , on the state of microservices security today. We dig deep into the issues of infrastructure, available tools, procedures, and challen...
Jan 11, 2021•36 min
In the last episode of 2020, we took a stroll through the little known corridors of coding history with Clive Thompson . Clive is a technology and science journalist for the New York Times Magazine, Wired, Smithsonian, and many other outlets. In his new book Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World *, he explores how computer programmers - the people who are increasingly running the world - think and what are their plans for changing the way WE work, think and live. In thi...
Dec 28, 2020•38 min
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way we work and communicate, some people expected remote work to become more popular. The thought was, however, that the transition will be done by choice, not by force! Today we talk with Johanna Rothmann , a management consultant, speaker, and author of over a dozen reference books on management, agile, team-building, and software development. Just a year before the first lockdown orders descended on the cities around the world, Johanna published w...
Dec 14, 2020•37 min
How has COVID-19 affected legacy code based systems, and what do we do to address the issue? Today we talk with Joao-Pierre Ruth , a technology journalist at InformationWeek where he covers DevOps and cloud computing. Joao-Pierre gives us his insights on the topic that inspired his recent article “ COBOL, COVID-19 and Coping with Legacy’s Tech-debt ”. After listening to the episode, connect with Joao-Pierre on LinkedIn and Twitter , and check out his articles for InformationWeek. Mentioned in th...
Nov 30, 2020•28 min
Knowing how to prioritize tasks and how to eliminate unnecessary assignments is a crucial skill for successful project management. The more complicated project is, the less obvious its priorities are. If only there were a tool that could help us navigate through this complexity. Today we talk with Jason C. McDonald , CEO, and co-founder of MousePaw Media , about Quantified Task Management , the tool that does exactly that. When you finish listening to the episode, connect with Jason on LinkedIn ...
Nov 16, 2020•40 min
We often talk about the makers and menders dichotomy on this show. But we rarely dived deep into the dynamics of collaboration between these two groups of creatives. Today we talk with Brandon Lewis and Luke Rabin , co-founders of BLDR , a digital agency specialized in creating UI/UX designs, technical docs, and developer teams. Building on the immense contributions of behavioral economics, Brandon and Luke talk about the ways of bringing makers and menders together and ensuring that their colla...
Nov 02, 2020•45 min
As menders working with legacy code, we are focused on identifying and reducing technical debt. But how much easier this task would be if the creator of the code or the previous maintainer left us some breadcrumbs to follow? A simple note on the rationale for a particular decision they have made or a warning about interconnected lines of code would take us a long way! Today we talk with Andrea Goulet , co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Corgibytes. Her empathy-driven approach to software d...
Oct 19, 2020•44 min
Most, if not all, of the legacy projects feature monolithic application architectures. However, moving to containers can bring many benefits: consistency down the pipeline, no-touch deployment, better support for decomposing the monolith - to name just a few. Today we talk with our own Ben Johnson . Ben is the lead code whisperer at Corgibytes and a developer with over 20 years of experience. We chat about containerization - what benefits does it bring, what challenges could you encounter in the...
Oct 05, 2020•33 min
Our Legacy Code Rocks community is turning five this year. To mark this exciting milestone, we decided to catch up with Woody Zuill , our frequent guest, and a person who always manages to teach us something new and exciting. Woody is best known for introducing mob programming to the world, and so we kick-off the show by discussing mob programming in the age of COVID-19. However, as it is always with Woody, he expands our horizons far beyond any single topic. If you get inspired by this chat as ...
Sep 21, 2020•44 min
Innovation is the hottest prize in the business. It attracts the most attention. It sells stocks in a blitz. It also distracts from what matters the most - maintaining, caring for, and upkeeping what we have already invented. Today we talk with Lee Vinsel , an assistant professor of Science, Technology, and Society at Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences , and Andy Russell , professor of history and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SUNY Polytechnic Institute . Andy...
Sep 07, 2020•41 min
When you build a house, you first build its foundations. This is what ensures its durability. The same stands for writing code - if written upon strong foundations, it will not be blown away by the first wind of change. The best way to achieve this is to think proactively. Today we talk with PJ Hagerty, the founder of devrelate.io , organizer of DevOps Days Buffalo , a developer, writer, speaker, musician, and community advocate. PJ tells us the secrets of proactive programming and how it can pr...
Aug 24, 2020•34 min
As we are going through a racial injustice reckoning here in the United States, each of us needs to look in the mirror, actively seek information, and find a way to contribute to a more just future. We can't talk about fixing code before we talk about the neglected voices in the process of building and mending that very code. Today we talk with Bryan Liles , a senior staff engineer at VMware , a team leader, and a code writer who tries to pump goodwill into the world. We talk about racial injust...
Aug 10, 2020•37 min
Staying agile is most important in times of crisis. After more than four months of Covid-19 disruption, it is clear that we are going through one of those era-defining moments. As the crisis drags on, we need to adapt and be more agile than ever. Today we talk with our own Andrea Goulet, Corgibytes CEO and Legacy Code Rocks co-host, about big changes we are going through here at Legacy Code Rocks and Corgibytes. So, take a listen and stay tuned!
Aug 06, 2020•48 min
Imagine if there were a tool to help you measure your code’s complexity, coverage, and smells, blend it all together and present you with an average score assessing your technical debt. SkunkScore is precisely such a tool. Today we talk with Ernesto Tagwerker, founder of Ombu Labs and fastruby.io—and the developer of the SkunkScore—about software maintenance and how to use SkunkScore to identify the most problematic parts of your code and guide you through your refactoring adventure. Mentioned i...
Jul 27, 2020•47 min
The need for speedy delivery is the reality of contemporary business. The requirements of modern software development are no different. However, when writing software we are making decisions based on knowledge, and finding knowledge often takes time. This is where we turn to software documentation, only to find it frustrating, incomplete, obsolete, or misleading. Today we talk with Cyrille Martraire, a software developer, finance business analyst, and the author of the book Living Documentation:...
Jul 13, 2020•43 min
There are many causes of technical debt - unknown or ill-defined requirements, business pressures to deliver fast, procedural deficiencies during development, and many more. These are often just manifestations of a larger problem - lack of understanding due to limitations of natural language and inability to predict future social and technical developments. Today we talk with Einar W. Høst , a programmer at the NRK , Norwegian public broadcasting company, about these sociolinguistic causes of te...
Jun 29, 2020•34 min
Do you ever feel like we are entering the age of democratization of software development? Do you fear that the platforms enabling novices with little coding experience to develop software applications are commoditizing your service as a developer? Today we talk with James Augeri , a serial entrepreneur, Techstars alumni, U.S. Airforce veteran, and a founder of Jingle , where he is working on making better search experiences. James shares with us his passion for low-code platforms - software appl...
Jun 15, 2020•41 min
When dealing with legacy code, it is easy to forget that the pipeline to deploy that code could be just as much "legacy' as the code itself. So how do you puzzle your way through resurrecting the pipeline, and how do you handle a legacy application from a CI/CD pipeline standpoint? Today we talk with Laura Santamaria , a LogDNA's development advocate, and DevOps practitioner. She shares with us the secrets of reconstructing legacy pipelines from the available logs and data, what to do when no da...
Jun 01, 2020•38 min
