Software Should be Free - podcast cover

Software Should be Free

Tim Abellpod.0x5.uk
Tim Abell & (sometimes) David Sheardown look for ways to help you solve your problems with computer things. Send us a voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/ssbf - https://0x5.uk/ - https://twitter.com/davidsheardown
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Episodes

AI coding tool landscape in July 2025 with Tim + David

# Summary In this conversation, Tim Abell and David Sheardown explore the challenges and innovations in productivity tools and AI coding assistants and the overwhelming landscape of AI tools available for software development. The dialogue delves into the nuances of using AI in coding, the potential of multi-agent systems, and the importance of context in achieving optimal results. They also touch on the future of AI in automation and the implications of emerging technologies. # Takeaways AI is ...

Jul 29, 20251 hr 1 minEp. 31

Practical AI coding - lessons learned - Jim+Tim

Tim & Jim discuss what they've learned trying to use AI tools such as github, gpt, windsurf, claude etc to write code in small and large projects, open and closed source. Jim: luxagen.com RotKraken rkd Vibe coding obama meme David just5mins Windsurf referer link for bonus credits cursor vs windsurf...

Apr 02, 202540 minEp. 30

Why is reading bad code so painful?!

From the blog - https://0x5.uk/2025/01/31/why-is-reading-bad-code-so-painful/ David's just-five-mins podcast - https://www.justfivemins.com/ ps, when I said "Increased heart attack" I meant to say "Increased heart rate" 🤕 😆 - but maybe bad code does lead to increased heart attack, so a Freudian slip?!

Mar 24, 202519 minEp. 29

Leaders and teams for successful software projects

A piece on leadership and teams needed to create great software projects and overcome the organisational immune system, all without any fan noise, and an intro from Mark . Unicorn project book DevOps handbook (hint, DevOps is *not* a separate team or job title, that's just Ops) Culture - The Fearless Organisation book MeLE Fanless Mini PC Quieter 4C Dead Sea Effect...

Dec 14, 202433 minEp. 28

Confident Contracting with Neil Millard

A flowing discussion with Neil about the life of a contractor, before during and after, with some important mental health lessons hard learned along the way. Neil shares advice for people at every stage in the contracting journey, from tentative first steps to options for going beyond contracting, along with his own journey. Neil: https://www.neilmillard.com/ LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilmillard/ Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@confidentcontractor The new book: https://www.confident...

Jul 19, 20242 hr 58 minEp. 27

Guest Just-5-Mins on outside-in-testing (cross-post)

David kindly had me on as a guest on his wonderful "just 5 mins" show to talk a bit more about outside-in-testing and answer some of his questions after my last episode on this show on the matter. - Just Five Mins! Episode 78 - Outside in Testing with Tim

May 13, 202418 minEp. 26

The importance of fully automated outside-in tests

A follow up to my blog post on test automation - with an angle that I think is missing in so much of the software industry - outside in fully automated tests from the perspective of the user is THE most important thing - plus don't let your tests see your internals, not even for setup and teardown. (01:53) - automated tests blog (05:20) - axiom 1 - user perspective (07:50) - axiom 2 - the 99th feature (21:00) - you are the expert (27:40) - no internals knowledge (41:00) - don't flex the rules (4...

Apr 05, 202450 minEp. 25

Writing the sln-items-sync dotnet tool

timwise.co.uk/2024/01/13/new-tool-sln-items-sync-for-visual-studio-solution-folders/ justfivemins.com (David's podcast) buttondown.email timwise.co.uk/subscribe

Jan 13, 202417 minEp. 24

Git merges, regression testing, hexagonal architecture blog-to-rss-to-email

https://timwise.co.uk/2023/10/20/use-kdiff3-for-merge-conflict-resolution/ https://timwise.co.uk/2023/10/20/git-what-do-'base'-'local'-'remote'-mean/ https://timwise.co.uk/2023/09/28/what-is-hexagonal-architecture/ https://timwise.co.uk/2019/10/14/merge-vs-rebase/ https://timwise.co.uk/subscribe/ https://github.com/rustworkshop/gitopolis/tree/3a8eb6e868a4e42370e8f4d587ad0e8525e9da2e/tests...

Oct 25, 202330 minEp. 23

Beware "Fast Talkers" and "Pattern Obsessives" - evolve your architecture

- beware fast talkers, as Ray Dalio says in Principles https://www.principles.com/ (as a tweet: https://twitter.com/RayDalio/status/1599056902637248514 ) - beware pattern obsessives (any pattern, architecture, SOLID, CQRS, Event Sourcing, Outside-in testing, you name it, someone wears it as a badge) - evolve your architecture - YAGNI, but do think ahead - currently available for c# contracts - building rustworkshop.co...

Jun 30, 202317 minEp. 22

Morning journaling, moving to tech lead, right-to-represent idea

Morning journaling Sunsama daily planning app Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham Right to represent idea Airtable for making forms and surveys Send me a voice message (may be included in the next show) Let me know you listened!...

Dec 08, 202117 minEp. 21

Working identity and a recovering contract market

* Read "Working Identity" for career change https://www.amazon.co.uk/Working-Identity-Unconventional-Strategies-Reinventing-ebook/dp/B004OEIQ7C * Maybe not an agency business... * The contract market is recovering * Yak Shaving - https://seths.blog/2005/03/dont_shave_that/ * Trying to build a SaaS in one evening with NoCode (fail) * What's [not very] new in ES6 * Why should software be free? - Cloud vs local compute. * Syncthing - https://syncthing.net/ Excuse the coughing, I've edited out a few...

Nov 24, 202116 minEp. 20

The new direction and some email and calendar tips

Tim is going to do more digital delivery (contract), while defending time for building useful things for podcasters and being involved in that space, all while being good at email and being a great family man. This episode was livestreamed with video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzcWCdVrbTE https://savvycal.com/articles/inbox-zero/ https://charmconsulting.co.uk/ https://businesscoachdirectory.com/ https://timwise.co.uk/2020/09/15/effective-gtd-with-trello/...

Nov 05, 202111 minEp. 19

Learning to code is hard

Out at the lake with the dog. Empathy for coding being hard to learn.

Oct 21, 20215 minEp. 16

Good morning

From yesterday's morning live stream experiment https://youtu.be/S4rHehuG3SE

Oct 19, 20216 minEp. 15

What even is systems integration?

David explains what systems integration really means when it comes down to getting things connected, and what things we are trying to connect in the first place.

Sep 06, 202130 minEp. 14

The fastest little steam engine

A little story about two little steam engines racing to the next station. You'll have to listen to find out what this has to do with software.

Jun 14, 20217 minEp. 12

A retrospective of mentoring, with David Gisbey

Tim was David Gisbey's assigned mentor at DfE. They discuss with the benefit of hindsight what makes for a good mentorship relationship. David Gisbey (on LinkedIn)

May 26, 202059 minEp. 10

Still hiding from covid19

David & Tim improve each other's mental health with some unstructured chit-chat. Being unfixable nerds of course we still cover technology and some useful tools. • https://www.realvision.com/grant-william-keynote-speech • http://danielamerman.com/va/ccc/G4SecBear.html • https://financialmentor.com/ • https://blog.trello.com/gtd-getting-things-done-maximizing-productivity-trello • https://trello.com/b/wN52OefB/software-should-be-free-podcast...

Apr 30, 20201 hr 12 minEp. 9

Hiding from Covid-19 and the end of 2 years at DfE

David and Tim just a have a catchup to keep sane in isolation. They discuss lessons learned from 2 years at the new DfE Digital including how to migrate platforms well, and how to do personal backlogs in the basecamp-shapeup style instead of a single backlog of doom.

Apr 03, 202024 minEp. 8

Oh no people are contributing to schema explorer!

Tim talks (rambles?) about the challenges of getting contributions to schema explorer now that it's open source, and about some things from his trello board of business ideas. https://timwise.co.uk/subscribe/ + https://jonathanstark.com/resources + https://www.betterhelp.com/ + https://sunnylenarduzzi.com/best-online-business-plan-2020/ + https://musicformakers.com/

Dec 02, 201915 minEp. 6

A look at basecamp's "shape up" method

Tim explains what he's learned about Shape Up! and David asks questions - https://basecamp.com/shapeup - https://timwise.co.uk/2019/11/26/time-to-shape-up-your-scrum-process-the-new-thing-from-basecamp/

Oct 31, 201922 minEp. 5

Guest Duncan Brown asks about outsourcing

Duncan, David & Tim go a bit deeper into the outsourcing experiment, share a bit more about themselves, and learn about David's new role.

Aug 07, 201928 minEp. 3

Show titles and outsourcing

Tim goes solo - talks about the show title and a first adventure in outsourcing.

Jul 24, 201919 minEp. 2
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