Host Matt is interviewing Stephen Margheim, product engineering lead at Zar, about managing software development with AI agents and the value of a "software foreman" over a "software factory."
2 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
Retiring from programming w/ Justin Searls
Host Matt and guest Justin Searls, author of "The Empowered Programmer," discuss the future of Rails and the impact of AI on programming, offering insights into taste as a lasting skill.
2 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
Irrefutable proof w/ Thorsten Ball
Host Matt interviews Thorsten Ball about building custom tools, the impact of AI on software development, and timeless coding principles.
1 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
Camping chair development w/ John Nunemaker
John Nunemaker, CEO of Fireside, discusses with Matt how to balance being the "brain" versus the "hands" in development, exploring agent tools and efficient infrastructure rewrites.
1 Oct 2026TRANSCRIPT
LLM junk food w/ Justin Duke
Host Matt interviews Justin Duke, CEO of Buttondown, about the low-value "junk food" of LLM agents and the true potential of AI in software development.
30 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
Infinite plausible PRs w/ Nate Berkopec
Host Matt Rakowski interviews Nate Berkopec about why AI agents generating plausible PRs don't increase speed and the true bottleneck of deciding what to merge.
30 Sept 2026TRANSCRIPT
What would you say...you do here?
Host [Host Name] and guest [Guest Name], a [Guest Credential], explore how the evolving landscape of software development necessitates re-evaluating our fundamental roles and practices.
5 Dec 2023
Programming Books w/ Aaron Francis
Matt and Aaron talk about programming books and try to answer the question "do we need them?"
This season of YAGNI was made possible by our friends at Flipper Cloud (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni) - Are big launches stressing you out? Then you need feature flags!
Flipper Cloud helps your team deploy the code now and then roll out features when you’re good and ready. Get started for free at
flippercloud.io (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni)
Aaron Francis on Twitter (https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis) // PlanetScale (https://planetscale.com/)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson) // arrows.to (https://arrows.to/)
Aaron's shed (https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis/status/1333866090573811723)
Aaron reading printed docs on the beach (https://twitter.com/aarondfrancis/status/1638191350653890569)
SQL Window Functions (https://mode.com/sql-tutorial/sql-window-functions/)
The Pragmatic Programmer (https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition/)
The Timeless Way of Building (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Timeless_Way_of_Building)
Culture is Stuck (https://lindynewsletter.beehiiv.com/p/culture-stuck)
Use the Index, Luke! (https://use-the-index-luke.com/)
MySQL for Developers course (https://planetscale.com/learn/courses/mysql-for-developers/introduction/course-introduction)
Why do programmers use books as monitor stands? (https://www.quora.com/Why-do-some-programmers-use-textbooks-as-monitor-stands)
28 Nov 2023
Redis w/ Nate Berkopec
Matt and Nate talk about Redis and try to answer the question "do we need it?"
This season of YAGNI was made possible by our friends at Flipper Cloud (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni) - Are big launches stressing you out? Then you need feature flags!
Flipper Cloud helps your team deploy the code now and then roll out features when you’re good and ready. Get started for free at
flippercloud.io (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni)
Nate Berkopec on Twitter (https://twitter.com/nateberkopec) // Speedshop (https://www.speedshop.co/)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson) // arrows.to (https://arrows.to/)
"Redis is not faster than your database" (https://twitter.com/nateberkopec/status/1699422215500947687)
"Your data fits in RAM" (https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/600783770925420546?lang=en)
March of progress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Progress)
neo4j (https://github.com/neo4j/neo4j)
sidekiq (https://github.com/sidekiq/sidekiq)
ACID (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACID)
kredis (https://github.com/rails/kredis)
Wafris (https://wafris.org/)
"Running Sidekiq...with a volatile eviction policy" (https://twitter.com/nateberkopec/status/1333863949238931464?lang=en)
Solid Queue (https://island94.org/2023/10/reflections-on-good-job-for-solid-queue)
Solid Cache (https://github.com/rails/solid_cache)
The open source gift exchange (https://world.hey.com/dhh/the-open-source-gift-exchange-2171e0f0)
puma/puma (https://github.com/puma/puma)
The Silver Rule (https://www.fabiostrassle.me/post/silver-rule/)
21 Nov 2023
Service Objects w/ Jason Swett
Matt and Jason talk about Service Objects and try to answer the question "do we need them?"
This season of YAGNI was made possible by our friends at Flipper Cloud (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni) - Are big launches stressing you out? Then you need feature flags!
Flipper Cloud helps your team deploy the code now and then roll out features when you’re good and ready. Get started for free at
flippercloud.io (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni)
Jason Swett on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JasonSwett) // Code with Jason (https://www.codewithjason.com/)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson) // arrows.to (https://arrows.to/)
Jason's Snail Mail newsletter (https://www.codewithjason.com/snail-mail-newsletter/)
Brevity is the soul of wit (https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/brevity)
14 Nov 2023
Testing w/ Josh Pigford
Matt and Josh talk about automated testing and try to answer the question "do we need them?"
This season of YAGNI was made possible by our friends at Flipper Cloud (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni) - Are big launches stressing you out? Then you need feature flags!
Flipper Cloud helps your team deploy the code now and then roll out features when you’re good and ready. Get started for free at
flippercloud.io (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni)
Josh Pigford on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Shpigford) // Detangle (https://detangle.ai/)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson) // arrows.to (https://arrows.to/)
Wittgenstein's Ruler (https://www.jaakkoj.com/concepts/wittgensteins-ruler)
Why doesn't Stripe have a /mrr endpoint? (https://twitter.com/mattwensing/status/1529852283667853312)
GitHub Project Paper Cuts (https://github.blog/2018-08-28-announcing-paper-cuts/)
Baremetrics (https://baremetrics.com/)
Maybe (https://goodbye.maybe.co/)
Laser Tweets (https://shop.lasertweets.co/)
Cedar & Sail (https://cedarandsail.com/)
The best restaurant in the world (https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us.html)
Kim Kardashian - Kimoji app (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimoji)
Cursor AI Editor (https://cursor.sh/)
Stated vs Revealed preferences (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference)
7 Nov 2023
GraphQL w/ Trevor Turk (Bonus: VCR)
Matt and Trevor talk about GraphQL and try to answer the question "do we need it?" (Bonus hot takes on VCR snapshot testing)
This season of YAGNI was made possible by our friends at Flipper Cloud (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni) - Are big launches stressing you out? Then you need feature flags!
Flipper Cloud helps your team deploy the code now and then roll out features when you’re good and ready. Get started for free at
flippercloud.io (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni)
Trevor Turk on Twitter (https://twitter.com/trevorturk) // Hello Weather (https://helloweather.com/)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson) // arrows.to (https://arrows.to/)
GraphQL: The Documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=783ccP__No8)
GraphiQL (https://github.com/graphql/graphiql)
n+1 problems in GraphQL (https://medium.com/the-marcy-lab-school/what-is-the-n-1-problem-in-graphql-dd4921cb3c1a)
BFF: Backend for Frontend (https://samnewman.io/patterns/architectural/bff/)
Graph Theory (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory)
Schema stitching (https://www.apollographql.com/blog/backend/graphql-schema-stitching/)
Bonus: VCR (https://github.com/vcr/vcr)
1 Nov 2023
Friday Deploys w/ Charity Majors
Matt and Charity talk about Friday Deploys and try to answer the question "do we need them?"
This season of YAGNI was made possible by our friends at Flipper Cloud (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni) - Are big launches stressing you out? Then you need feature flags!
Flipper Cloud helps your team deploy the code now and then roll out features when you’re good and ready. Get started for free at
flippercloud.io (https://www.flippercloud.io/?utm_source=yagni)
Charity Majors on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mipsytipsy) // honeycomb.io (https://www.honeycomb.io/)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson) // arrows.to (https://arrows.to/)
Friday deploy freezes are exactly like murdering puppies (https://charity.wtf/2019/05/01/friday-deploy-freezes-are-exactly-like-murdering-puppies/)
Coaching tree (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaching_tree)
Frequency Reduces Difficulty (Martin Fowler) (https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FrequencyReducesDifficulty.html)
Payoff space vs consistency space (https://archive.ph/2021.02.25-232431/https://paulskallas.substack.com/p/the-weekend-and-the-4hl)
Blame-aware postmortem (https://techbeacon.com/app-dev-testing/blameless-postmortems-dont-work-heres-what-does)
DORA metrics (https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/using-the-four-keys-to-measure-your-devops-performance)
23 Oct 2023
Do we still need this podcast?
21 Nov 2022
RSpec w/ Justin Searls
Justin Searls on Twitter (https://twitter.com/searls)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson)
Arrows (https://arrows.to/)
Test Double (https://testdouble.com/)
Justin's "What do you like about RSpec" thread (2016) (https://twitter.com/searls/status/726062060497412096)
Dan North BDD (https://cucumber.io/docs/bdd/history/)
Nate Berkopec "Reading rspec documentation like..." tweet (https://twitter.com/nateberkopec/status/785853660228096004)
Corey Haines: Fast Rails Tests (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNn6M2vqxHE)
Kent Beck: "I get paid for code that works, not for tests..." (https://stackoverflow.com/questions/153234/how-deep-are-your-unit-tests/153565#153565)
Nick Quaranto's minitest CLI wrapper (https://github.com/qrush/m)
Mocktail gem (https://github.com/testdouble/mocktail)
test_data gem (https://github.com/testdouble/test_data)
14 Nov 2022
Small user stories w/ Dave Copeland
Dave Copeland on Twitter (https://twitter.com/davetron5000)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson)
Arrows (https://arrows.to/)
Mood Health (https://moodhealth.com/)
Taylorism / Scientific management (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management)
Google DORA Report (https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/devops-sre/dora-2022-accelerate-state-of-devops-report-now-out)
"Agile" on TikTok (https://www.tiktok.com/discover/agile?lang=en)
The Joel Test (https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/08/09/the-joel-test-12-steps-to-better-code/)
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/43852-think-of-how-stupid-the-average-person-is-and-realize)
7 Nov 2022
Staging servers w/ Justin Duke
Justin Duke on Twitter (https://twitter.com/jmduke)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson)
Arrows (https://arrows.to/)
Buttondown (http://buttondown.email/)
Accidental AirBnB "test" notification (https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/17/23309796/airbnb-android-users-accidental-test-notification)
The Pragmatic Programmer (https://pragprog.com/titles/tpp20/the-pragmatic-programmer-20th-anniversary-edition/)
"SICP" book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of_Computer_Programs)
"We dont use a staging server" HN thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30899362)
Checklist Manifesto (http://atulgawande.com/book/the-checklist-manifesto/)
IQ Bell Curve / Midwit - Know Your Meme (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/iq-bell-curve-midwit)
1 Nov 2022
Detailed commit messages w/ Chris Toomey
Chris Toomey on Twitter (https://twitter.com/christoomey)
Matt Swanson on Twitter (https://twitter.com/_swanson)
Arrows (https://arrows.to/)
Sagewell Financial (https://www.sagewellfinancial.com/)
Write Good Commit Messages by Blaming Others (https://thoughtbot.com/blog/write-good-commit-messages-by-blaming-others)
The seven rules of a good git commit message (https://cbea.ms/git-commit/)
David Hemphill - WIP (https://podcasts.apple.com/gh/podcast/david-hemphill-convince-us-to-wip/id1455034944?i=1000432500820)
Hot Ones (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Ones)
Russian Roulette and expected value (https://fs.blog/nassim-taleb-alternative-history/)
2 Aug 2022
WTF is YAGNI?
Everything has to start somewhere. Why not here?
Inside a recent episode
I need a software foreman w/ Stephen Margheim
Published 12 Oct 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] You know, so we're I'm pushing really hard right now to get like I want literally every surface of our entire product back end, all mobile apps, web surfaces, every line of all of our logs, all of our exceptions, like everything just watched all the time. And it's not tricky. It's not it's not even super expensive. Yeah. But it's completely and utterly changes how we think about developing software. If you and it opens up these possibilities of like this meritocracy, like, no, like we can make our software system so much better. It will require low-level sweeping changes. We can do those. We can do them much faster, which decreases risk, and we can roll them out over the course of 30 discrete steps. […]
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