Maintainable Software Podcast

Software has a “dark secret”: the real cost. Mark Stringer discusses software maintenance, hidden trade-offs, and whether AI has actually made software cheaper on this week’s Maintainable. 🎧 Catch up with @robbyrussell:

Mark Stringer joins Maintainable to talk about the real cost of software, why maintenance never ends, and whether AI is actually making software cheaper. 🎧 Listen with @RobbyRussell:

RT @robbyrussell: I’ve been tinkering with the @_maintainable archives. Over the years, hundreds of people have stopped by to talk about maintaining software, technical debt, legacy systems, rewrites, refactoring, and all the other messiness that comes with software that sticks around. So I decided they deserved yearbooks. The Maintainable Classes of 2019 through 2026 are now up on the site. If you’ve been a guest over the years… go find your class. 🎓 ...and if you find yourself, drop your episode in the comments. I’d love to resurface some conversations from the archives.

Still thinking about this one. @MatijaSosic joins @RobbyRussell to explore boring software, abstractions, Wasp, and what AI changes about the way we build and maintain software. Listen:

New episode: @MatijaSosic joins @Robbyrussell to talk about boring software, abstraction, Wasp’s evolution, and why AI may make good frameworks more valuable; not less. Listen here:

"Maintainable software is software that you don’t really notice." José Valim joined Robby to talk about designing Elixir for decades of evolution and why keeping things understandable matters even more as AI accelerates development. 🎧

RT @robbyrussell: Recently, I had the chance to interview @josevalim for @_maintainable about designing a language we can maintain for decades.

What changes when the software you maintain is a programming language used by thousands of applications? José Valim joins Robby to talk about designing Elixir for long-term evolution, restraint, extensibility, and what AI is changing for maintainers. 🎧

Before you remove the weird thing, find out why it’s there. @JohnAthayde joins Maintainable to discuss understanding real user workflows before cleaning up or rewriting long-lived software. Listen here:

Software maintenance isn't just about the code. @JohnAthayde joins @robbyrussell on Maintainable to discuss front-end sprawl, design systems, AI-assisted software archaeology, and when to rewrite vs. refactor. Listen here:

RT @iwashi86: AIシステムの保守は従来の保守とどう違うのかを議論されてそうなPodcast ep。 maintainable\.fm は初めて知ったので、ちょっといくつか探ってみよう。

How do you make the case for technical debt? Kristin Isaac argues that the strongest case connects maintenance work to customer impact, revenue, reliability, and risk. Sometimes it takes a better story, not just a technical argument.

Customers don't call it “technical debt.” They say your product is slow, unreliable, or broken. Kristin Isaac joins @RobbyRussell to talk about connecting maintenance work to customer experience, revenue, reliability, and trust. Listen here:

"A multitude of workers." That's how Obie Fernandez described his AI architecture in 2024. We call it agent orchestration now. What makes the episode worth revisiting is that he frames it as a maintainability decision, not a capability one.

Missed this week’s Maintainable? David Hayes joins @Robbyrussell to explore why stable, predictable software matters — and what naval history can teach us about building reliable teams. ⚓ Listen here:

New on Maintainable 🎙️ David Hayes of FusionAuth joins @RobbyRussell to talk about long-lived software, technical debt, self-hosted products, and why “boring” software can be a good thing. Listen here:

RT @MatijaSosic: Today I'm recording an episode of @_maintainable with @robbyrussell (you might know him as the Oh My Zsh creator) I'll tell the story of how my brother and I spent 5 years and $5M inventing a new language for web dev, admitted it was a mistake, and tore it out for TypeScript. The plot twist: the high-level spec we were left with is exactly what makes @WaspLang the most AI-legible framework in JS.

We're writing context files for AI agents, but actually, the rules are the same ones we've been ignoring for humans for years! Daniela Baron and Robby discussed this topic long before agents were reading our repos...