How do the love for vintage computers and test automation come together? Can one inspire another and how? Today we talk with Sophia Mckeever, a software development engineer at Pokemon Company International, a test automation framework architect, and a computer historian. She tells us what led her to collect vintage computers, how they evolved into machines we work on today, and what is the connecting thread between computer history and test automation.  When you finish listening to the...

In Kubernetes, security is a joint effort between security engineers and DevOps. A perfect tool to bring these two together is Kubescape, an open-source Kubernetes security project.  Today, we talk with Shauli Rozen, the CEO of ARMO, the company behind Kubescape. Shauli has more than fifteen years of experience in technology, B2B management, and business development. He tells us about the advantages of Kubescape, what it does, and when would you want to use it.  When you finish listening to...

Simply knowing what is in your software is not any guarantee of safety. We need to know what that software does versus what we expect it to do. We need to know its rules of behavior.  Today, we talk with Andrew Hendela, a founder of Karambit.ai, a company dedicated to automatically detecting malware and securing your software supply chain. Andrew worked for over a decade automating hard cybersecurity problems. He has many years of experience in cybersecurity leadership and deep technical...

In the age of rising AI, we cannot neglect the topic of the social and political consequences of the code we leave behind. Today, we talk with Amy Newell, a 24-year veteran of the tech industry and an avid activist in issues spanning from local politics to tech. Amy discusses how to engage with emerging technologies, how to use them, and how to create them while being cognisant of the harm we can inadvertently cause along the way. When you finish listening to the episode, visit Amy's website...

Imagine if you could counter ransomware by exploiting it to create a backup of your attacked data for you. Now, that would be disruptive!  Today, we talk with Lance James. James is an experienced cybersecurity specialist with 25 years of experience in the field. Building on his programming, network security, digital forensics, malware research, and counterintelligence experience, Lance tells us how to use disruptive thinking to improve cyber security and predict and counter major cyber...

Going from monolith to microservices is one of the most popular topics in software engineering. But jumping the boat without understanding why can be a dangerous (and expensive) adventure.  Today we talk with Nelida Velazquez. Nelida is a senior software engineer at Cobalt, a cyber security company that offers pentest as a service. As a backend developer, she had numerous opportunities to witness ill-informed migrations from monolith to microservices, and she is sharing her experience with...

Microsoft invited the Legacy Code Rocks team to attend Microsoft Build Conference and gave us access to the studio on the third floor of the Seattle Convention Center. In this episode, we talk with Raymond Chen, a senior software engineer at Microsoft.   Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the...

Microsoft invited the Legacy Code Rocks team to attend Microsoft Build Conference and gave us access to the studio on the third floor of the Seattle Convention Center. In this episode, we talk with Debbie O’Brien and Max Schmitt, both part of the Microsoft Playwright team..  Playwright is a tool developed by Microsoft that allows developers to automate the testing of web applications.. Playwright's unique feature is its ability to handle multiple browser contexts, making it efficient for...

Microsoft invited the Legacy Code Rocks team to attend Microsoft Build Conference and gave us access to the studio on the third floor of the Seattle Convention Center. In this episode, we talk with Kayla Cinnamon, the first of the three guests we had an opportunity to chat with at the Conference.  Kayla is a Product Manager with Microsoft. She’s currently working on Microsoft Dev Home and helps out the Microsoft PowerToys team. Kayla is also the former product manager of Windows Terminal....

How many of your passwords do you actually know? Now, how many of those passwords are already on the black web? We are living in a fascinating age of transition from personalised passwords dependent on text inputs and our memory to more advanced access solutions.  To help us navigate this evolution, we talk with Justin Richer. Justin is a technologist working on a wide variety of projects and problems throughout the internet. Justin is the founder of Bespoke Engineering, an independent...

There is some disconnect between business people and engineers when talking about technical debt. While engineers understand the metaphor as a credit card debt that has to be paid off entirely and as soon as possible, business people see it more as a mortgage paid in small installments over a long period.  Today we talk with Dave Mangot, CEO of Mangoteque and the consultant, author, and speaker helping private equity portfolio companies get good at delivering software. As a former architect...

How to ensure that your code review practices are not just an expensive bottleneck in your team’s productivity but its ultimate superpower? Today we talk with Michaela Greiler, a Head of Research at DX and the owner of a consultancy and training company, Awesome Code Reviews, focused on helping development teams improve their practices and processes. She tells us when to do code reviews, how to get the most value out of them, how to incentivize meaningful code reviews, and much more.  When...

What does it mean to build a cost-free feature in the software, and are cost-free features even possible? Today we talk with Avdi Grimm. Avdi is a software developer with more than twenty years of experience. During his career, Avdi worked on everything from aerospace embedded systems to enterprise web applications. He is the author of Confident Ruby: 32 Patterns for Joyful Coding and a recipient of the Ruby Hero Award. Currently, he spends his time helping developers deepen their coding...

Every once in a while, it is wise to stop for a second and think about why we do things in a specific way and whether we need to change something. This is where rethinking processes kick in.  Today we talk with Stefanni Brasil, a co-founder of hexdevs, a senior developer at Thoughtbot, and a core maintainer of faker-ruby. Stefanni is also a co-host of the hexdevs podcast, a show helping developers take their Ruby career to the next level.  She tells us about her keen interest in processes,...

There is an eternal dilemma among software developers - should we try our best to predict the future and build it into our code, or should we just plan for frequent iterations?  Today we talk with Ashu Chatterji, CEO of Caravel Labs and software engineer with 3+ decades of industry experience, working to reimagine IT consulting as an industry incentivized by innovative outcomes in global sustainability and social justice. Ashu built and led a global practice of "player-coach engineers" that...

To build anew or to rebuild? Many developers have a knee-jerk reaction to start building existing software systems from scratch because they think that is the easiest way forward.  Today, we talk with John Ousterhout. John is the Bosack Lerner Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. His current research focuses on new software stack layers to allow data center applications to take advantage of communication and storage technologies with microsecond-scale latencies. He is the...

Working on legacy code is never easy, but some programming languages make it more enjoyable.  Today, we talk with Richard Feldman, the creator of the Roc programming language, the author of Elm in Action, and the creator of the Frontend Masters courses Introduction to Elm and Introduction to Rust. Richard tells us about the advantages of the Elm, Rock, and Rust languages and why they are more enjoyable to work with than other languages.  When you finish listening to the episode, connect...

Product teams are scared of technical debt and refactoring. They press on to make something new, not to question what they have already created. However, the urgency to deliver new products carries the risk of technical debt.  Today, we talk with Andreas Creten, a software engineer turned CTO. Andreas is a co-founder of Made With Love, a company that helps startups and scaleups to get out of technical trouble. Andreas tells us how to work with product teams to address technical debt in the...

How can cooking help you have a better team? Today, we talk with Kimberly Fox. Kimberly leads virtual and in-person cooking classes and is a recipe developer and writer for her blog, From Market to Table. Building on more than ten years of experience working in STEM and witnessing gender inequalities and micro-cultures in corporate settings, Kimberly developed her signature corporate cooking experiences helping leaders to build more inclusive and diverse teams. When you finish listening to...