Pioneered JUnit/xUnit, patterns, XP, TDD. Ex-Apple, Meta, Gusto, Mechanical Orchard. Learning to be me. Blogging at https://nitter.cf/t.co/wJpBuSGJyB.
San Francisco, CA
Joined October 2008
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Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
If I could only reread 5 books for the rest of my career as an Engineering Manager, I'd choose:
1. Become an Effective Software Engineering Manager - @jstanier (2020)
If you read one, make it this one :)
Covers almost everything you need to know, at every level.
2. An Elegant Puzzle - @Lethain (2019)
Deep and practical, with real examples from his career. No surface-level tips.
3. The Manager's Path - Camille Fournier (2017)
More basic, but covers the whole ladder: tech lead to CTO.
4. Peopleware - DeMarco & Lister (1987)
40 years old, and still super relevant!
It's where "jelled teams" comes from, a concept I really believe in.
5. Extreme Programming Explained - @KentBeck (1999)
5 values, 14 principles, 26 practices. Most of them are truer than ever, even in our crazy AI world. It's not really about management, but it actually is.
I limited myself to 5 per category, and did the same for articles, newsletters, and podcast episodes.
The full list:
manager.dev/newsletter/5-thi…
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
"Daddy, what was vim?"
For about 80 years, the motive force behind software was humans writing in formal languages, using their fingers and their brains. It is now obvious we are going to go on making software, and that it is going to be coding models doing the vast majority of writing, debugging, and increasingly designing that software. So what now?
I am fortunate to have some great people to Talk Computers with in my life, and while we haven't found the answers yet, we at pebblebed have begun recording these discussions, under the working title "After Coding". Episode 1 is the inimitable Josh Wills. Do give it a listen, won't you dear catcher of cast pods?
open.spotify.com/show/6bsC4D…
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
Keith is the best engineer I ever worked with and we got to hit on all of my favorite topics in this conversation: pure math, chess, engineering, and what all of this means for the kids.
nitter.cf/pebble_bed/status/2102…
The clankers have the keyboard. Rather than mourn the transition, we find it exhilarating.
Announcing After Coding, a new Pebblebed podcast with @keithmadams. Episode 1 with @josh_wills is live.
link >>
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
Effective leaders are skilled business operators first, and kind people second. Charity Majors(@mipsytipsy), cofounder & CTO of Honeycomb:
"Twitter had 16 years to figure it out and everyone could see that they were not figuring it out. You could argue that X has gotten better or worse, but you can't argue that Musk is running it with 20% as many people. And it's working.
You could argue, and I think it would be true, that it's some of the work that those engineers did that allowed this. But this is the point. If we don't do it ourselves, meaning hold ourselves to a high standard, build with efficiency, constantly be like trying to get better, someone will come and do it to us.
In the 2010s, there was so much money sloshing around in Silicon Valley and then times started to get tough and all of these companies canceled their DEI programs. They never believed in that. They were just trying to buy people off.
I have taken a lot of lessons away from that: it's not enough to be a good person. I believe that people who are kind and care about people can, and usually do, do better than sociopaths in the same roles, but only if they are good at business."
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
All models, no matter how smart, will eventually build systems that they can no longer understand or maintain, if you let them. Fable 5 finally outbuilt itself, and flailed on me for a week. Fable 5.1 looks like it will fix it. For now. But you have to keep an iron grip on system size, or it'll run away from you.
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
Just @KentBeck saying how it is
What is “the seagull architect”? @KentBeck, creator of Extreme Programming & TDD, co-author of the Agile Manifesto:
“The seagull, the seagull, the seagull, because, you fly in, make a bunch of noise, crap all over everything, and then you fly out”
“They want to think, I am the designer of interfaces and I worked hard at this and I want to ask you a bunch of questions, and then I want to cogitate on that, and then I'm going to bring you the solution and then you'll thank me and pat me on the head.
Of course that doesn't happen. You can't understand somebody else's problem as well as they do. And it's not exactly true. Your understanding of somebody else's problem is bounded because you're not in the middle of it."
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
"90% of my skills just went to $0. The other 10% went up 1,000x." @KentBeck
Kent breaks down what actually got MORE valuable now that AI writes the code.
Watch: youtube.com/shorts/q23xDmzGK…
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
In conversation with my dear old
friend @KentBeck. The coding genies are marvelous, but I will forever miss the flow state of deep absorption in the details of a coding problem. youtu.be/C4zrIfGgaMI?si=m3-3…
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
We published a blog post about Astryx's design philosophy. One of the aspect that is reminiscent from the Prettier days is to decide on APIs based on testing and real world usage. Highly recommend the reading the entire post :)
astryx.atmeta.com/blog/how-a…
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
Kudos to Anthropic for saying this, even if it’s buried in the middle of the article.
That said: acceleration of what, exactly? You know, even a tiny change in a big ball of mud results in a huge number of changed lines 🤔
"Lines of code is an imperfect measure, as it measures quantity over quality. So 8× lines of code/engineer/day in the second quarter of 2026 is almost certainly an overstatement of the true productivity gain. Nonetheless, it indicates an acceleration."
Our internal data shows Claude is accelerating AI development—a possible path to recursive self-improvement, or AI autonomously building a more capable successor.
It’s happening faster than we thought, and the implications deserve greater attention. anthropic.com/institute/recu…
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
The Democratic Establishment is trying to rig a primary in Massachusetts. And they're using AI money to help.
Stand up to this by going to bethfordemocracy.com and donating to help us reboot democracy.
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
I'll be a keynote speaker at @CraftConf on 4 June, in Budapest, Hungary. It's one of my favorite conferences, and the speaker lineup simply stellar. @KentBeck and many others will be there.
If you'll be there: catch you at the event! Details + tickets: craft-conf.com/2026
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
I got to meet @KentBeck in person (finally!) and talk about AI, software, and what it's like to be working in this industry for decades, next to a crackling fire, as the sun went down behind us. 🌄
Don't miss Kent's new podcast. It is lovely. #lifegoals
"All the computing power in the world can't tell us what the weather is next month."
@mipsytipsy on why AGI might not be coming in 2027... or ever.
Full ep → open.spotify.com/episode/0QU…
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
📣 WELCOME TO THE ENGINEERING ROOM Steve Freeman 📣
Steve is a pioneer of the software craftsmanship movement and a foundational figure in the global Agile community.
🔊 Listen now:
Apple - apple.co/43s2e0h
Spotify - spoti.fi/3VqZVIV
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
Two legends confirmed for The Pragmatic Summit: Martin Fowler (@martinfowler) and Kent Beck (@KentBeck)
We'll talk about what past booms+busts taught them, and their take on AI+software engineering: what they see working, and what not so much
11 Feb, SF: pragmaticsummit.com/
Kent Beck 🌻 retweeted
Final @_maintainable episode of 2025… I peppered @KentBeck with questions, and he basically called out how teams quietly pay for lost optionality.
What’s one decision you regret because it narrowed your options?
maintainable.fm/episodes/ken…
