Dead Code
@deadcode.website
A podcast by @jardo.dev about making the software industry better. New episodes every Tuesday. https://deadcode.website
Your product manager is relaying what another team told them, and so was that team.
Noah Silvera calls it the line of telephone. Taking a requirement at face value means trusting all of it. She argues engineers own the outcome either way, so the floor is asking the client why.
Noah Silvera calls it the line of telephone. Taking a requirement at face value means trusting all of it. She argues engineers own the outcome either way, so the floor is asking the client why.
September 16, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Your product manager is relaying what another team told them, and so was that team.
Noah Silvera calls it the line of telephone. Taking a requirement at face value means trusting all of it. She argues engineers own the outcome either way, so the floor is asking the client why.
Noah Silvera calls it the line of telephone. Taking a requirement at face value means trusting all of it. She argues engineers own the outcome either way, so the floor is asking the client why.
Some iteration happens outside the codebase.
Noah Silvera has spent six years at Super Good Software on clients who want everything fast and right the first time. She argues the cheapest way to avoid building the wrong thing is negotiating requirements before opening the editor.
Noah Silvera has spent six years at Super Good Software on clients who want everything fast and right the first time. She argues the cheapest way to avoid building the wrong thing is negotiating requirements before opening the editor.
September 15, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Some iteration happens outside the codebase.
Noah Silvera has spent six years at Super Good Software on clients who want everything fast and right the first time. She argues the cheapest way to avoid building the wrong thing is negotiating requirements before opening the editor.
Noah Silvera has spent six years at Super Good Software on clients who want everything fast and right the first time. She argues the cheapest way to avoid building the wrong thing is negotiating requirements before opening the editor.
Your production server is slow and nobody can tell you why.
Charles Nutter attaches a tool to a running process and watches where the time goes, at one or two percent overhead. That tooling is a big reason JRuby users stay and comes from thousands of engineers improving the JVM.
Charles Nutter attaches a tool to a running process and watches where the time goes, at one or two percent overhead. That tooling is a big reason JRuby users stay and comes from thousands of engineers improving the JVM.
September 9, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Your production server is slow and nobody can tell you why.
Charles Nutter attaches a tool to a running process and watches where the time goes, at one or two percent overhead. That tooling is a big reason JRuby users stay and comes from thousands of engineers improving the JVM.
Charles Nutter attaches a tool to a running process and watches where the time goes, at one or two percent overhead. That tooling is a big reason JRuby users stay and comes from thousands of engineers improving the JVM.
"Some of them tell me they've been running JRuby for 15 years, and I never heard a word about it."
Charles Nutter meets new JRuby users at every conference he attends. He funds the project himself now through Headius Enterprises, and those users are the reason it still ships.
Charles Nutter meets new JRuby users at every conference he attends. He funds the project himself now through Headius Enterprises, and those users are the reason it still ships.
September 9, 2026 at 3:15 PM
"Some of them tell me they've been running JRuby for 15 years, and I never heard a word about it."
Charles Nutter meets new JRuby users at every conference he attends. He funds the project himself now through Headius Enterprises, and those users are the reason it still ships.
Charles Nutter meets new JRuby users at every conference he attends. He funds the project himself now through Headius Enterprises, and those users are the reason it still ships.
"The top three complaints about JRuby are all startup time, basically."
Charles Nutter thinks JRuby would be close to standard in Ruby shops today if that had been solved a decade ago. He also explains why the fix was never his to make and what the OpenJDK team changed recently.
Charles Nutter thinks JRuby would be close to standard in Ruby shops today if that had been solved a decade ago. He also explains why the fix was never his to make and what the OpenJDK team changed recently.
September 4, 2026 at 3:15 PM
"The top three complaints about JRuby are all startup time, basically."
Charles Nutter thinks JRuby would be close to standard in Ruby shops today if that had been solved a decade ago. He also explains why the fix was never his to make and what the OpenJDK team changed recently.
Charles Nutter thinks JRuby would be close to standard in Ruby shops today if that had been solved a decade ago. He also explains why the fix was never his to make and what the OpenJDK team changed recently.
It cost $50 to get in and 60 people showed up.
Charles Nutter was a Java architect on government contracts when he sat in on that DC Ruby conference and understood every slide without ever writing Ruby. He went looking for a way to use it at work and found JRuby idle since 2001.
Charles Nutter was a Java architect on government contracts when he sat in on that DC Ruby conference and understood every slide without ever writing Ruby. He went looking for a way to use it at work and found JRuby idle since 2001.
September 2, 2026 at 3:15 PM
It cost $50 to get in and 60 people showed up.
Charles Nutter was a Java architect on government contracts when he sat in on that DC Ruby conference and understood every slide without ever writing Ruby. He went looking for a way to use it at work and found JRuby idle since 2001.
Charles Nutter was a Java architect on government contracts when he sat in on that DC Ruby conference and understood every slide without ever writing Ruby. He went looking for a way to use it at work and found JRuby idle since 2001.
People hear "Ruby on the JVM" and immediately picture themselves writing Java.
Charles Nutter has spent 20 years saying otherwise. JRuby is a full Ruby implementation, and a Rails or Hanami app comes straight over to run on better garbage collection and real parallel threads.
Charles Nutter has spent 20 years saying otherwise. JRuby is a full Ruby implementation, and a Rails or Hanami app comes straight over to run on better garbage collection and real parallel threads.
September 1, 2026 at 4:38 PM
People hear "Ruby on the JVM" and immediately picture themselves writing Java.
Charles Nutter has spent 20 years saying otherwise. JRuby is a full Ruby implementation, and a Rails or Hanami app comes straight over to run on better garbage collection and real parallel threads.
Charles Nutter has spent 20 years saying otherwise. JRuby is a full Ruby implementation, and a Rails or Hanami app comes straight over to run on better garbage collection and real parallel threads.
His managers quoted the Agile Manifesto for a year. He assumed it was 400 pages of ISO-style rules.
Then Nik Suresh actually looked it up, found five lines, and spent a week convinced he'd found the wrong document. His manager was no help. He'd never read it either.
Then Nik Suresh actually looked it up, found five lines, and spent a week convinced he'd found the wrong document. His manager was no help. He'd never read it either.
August 28, 2026 at 3:15 PM
His managers quoted the Agile Manifesto for a year. He assumed it was 400 pages of ISO-style rules.
Then Nik Suresh actually looked it up, found five lines, and spent a week convinced he'd found the wrong document. His manager was no help. He'd never read it either.
Then Nik Suresh actually looked it up, found five lines, and spent a week convinced he'd found the wrong document. His manager was no help. He'd never read it either.
"If you've got one-hour stand-ups, like, just quit. You're cooked."
Nik Suresh thought he was immune to his dysfunctional workplace because he could see how silly it was. Years later, he can name exactly what staying cost him.
Nik Suresh thought he was immune to his dysfunctional workplace because he could see how silly it was. Years later, he can name exactly what staying cost him.
August 26, 2026 at 3:15 PM
"If you've got one-hour stand-ups, like, just quit. You're cooked."
Nik Suresh thought he was immune to his dysfunctional workplace because he could see how silly it was. Years later, he can name exactly what staying cost him.
Nik Suresh thought he was immune to his dysfunctional workplace because he could see how silly it was. Years later, he can name exactly what staying cost him.
One day late? Freak out.
Nik Suresh argues a missed deadline is evidence your estimate was wrong from the start, and every extra week makes that case stronger. His fix is to panic on day one, when there's still time to do something about it.
Nik Suresh argues a missed deadline is evidence your estimate was wrong from the start, and every extra week makes that case stronger. His fix is to panic on day one, when there's still time to do something about it.
August 21, 2026 at 3:15 PM
One day late? Freak out.
Nik Suresh argues a missed deadline is evidence your estimate was wrong from the start, and every extra week makes that case stronger. His fix is to panic on day one, when there's still time to do something about it.
Nik Suresh argues a missed deadline is evidence your estimate was wrong from the start, and every extra week makes that case stronger. His fix is to panic on day one, when there's still time to do something about it.
"You're asking people to lie to you basically full time."
Nik Suresh has a theory about what Jira boards and story points are really for. Hint: it has more to do with executive comfort than shipping software.
Nik Suresh has a theory about what Jira boards and story points are really for. Hint: it has more to do with executive comfort than shipping software.
August 19, 2026 at 3:15 PM
"You're asking people to lie to you basically full time."
Nik Suresh has a theory about what Jira boards and story points are really for. Hint: it has more to do with executive comfort than shipping software.
Nik Suresh has a theory about what Jira boards and story points are really for. Hint: it has more to do with executive comfort than shipping software.
Layoffs were coming, so every team started relabeling their one-point stories as threes.
Nik Suresh watched it happen during COVID: velocity numbers went up, executives were pleased, and the teams that reported honest numbers got fired. Every single one of them.
Nik Suresh watched it happen during COVID: velocity numbers went up, executives were pleased, and the teams that reported honest numbers got fired. Every single one of them.
August 18, 2026 at 8:26 PM
Layoffs were coming, so every team started relabeling their one-point stories as threes.
Nik Suresh watched it happen during COVID: velocity numbers went up, executives were pleased, and the teams that reported honest numbers got fired. Every single one of them.
Nik Suresh watched it happen during COVID: velocity numbers went up, executives were pleased, and the teams that reported honest numbers got fired. Every single one of them.
Always dreamed of building your own programming language?
Nithin Bekal's advice: just dive in. Parsing is more approachable than it looks, and his first working release shipped in three days. "It may not be adopted by everyone, but who cares? You'll learn a lot along the way."
Nithin Bekal's advice: just dive in. Parsing is more approachable than it looks, and his first working release shipped in three days. "It may not be adopted by everyone, but who cares? You'll learn a lot along the way."
August 14, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Always dreamed of building your own programming language?
Nithin Bekal's advice: just dive in. Parsing is more approachable than it looks, and his first working release shipped in three days. "It may not be adopted by everyone, but who cares? You'll learn a lot along the way."
Nithin Bekal's advice: just dive in. Parsing is more approachable than it looks, and his first working release shipped in three days. "It may not be adopted by everyone, but who cares? You'll learn a lot along the way."
"I add something in and then, like, two days later, I realize I hate it."
Language design is hard. And Nithin Bekal says his language will keep its rough edges until he does the one thing he hasn't done yet: actually write code in it.
Language design is hard. And Nithin Bekal says his language will keep its rough edges until he does the one thing he hasn't done yet: actually write code in it.
August 12, 2026 at 3:15 PM
"I add something in and then, like, two days later, I realize I hate it."
Language design is hard. And Nithin Bekal says his language will keep its rough edges until he does the one thing he hasn't done yet: actually write code in it.
Language design is hard. And Nithin Bekal says his language will keep its rough edges until he does the one thing he hasn't done yet: actually write code in it.
Matz built Spinel. Steve Klabnik built Rue. And Nithin Bekal built Sapphire.
There's a whole cluster of new hobby languages right now, and it's not a coincidence. Getting to 90% of a language in two months changes the math.
There's a whole cluster of new hobby languages right now, and it's not a coincidence. Getting to 90% of a language in two months changes the math.
August 7, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Matz built Spinel. Steve Klabnik built Rue. And Nithin Bekal built Sapphire.
There's a whole cluster of new hobby languages right now, and it's not a coincidence. Getting to 90% of a language in two months changes the math.
There's a whole cluster of new hobby languages right now, and it's not a coincidence. Getting to 90% of a language in two months changes the math.
"I definitely feel like I've lost control of the codebase."
Nithin Bekal has a working language, a Wasm target, and 15,000 lines of Rust he doesn't fully understand. Now comes the hard part: taking it back.
Nithin Bekal has a working language, a Wasm target, and 15,000 lines of Rust he doesn't fully understand. Now comes the hard part: taking it back.
August 5, 2026 at 3:15 PM
"I definitely feel like I've lost control of the codebase."
Nithin Bekal has a working language, a Wasm target, and 15,000 lines of Rust he doesn't fully understand. Now comes the hard part: taking it back.
Nithin Bekal has a working language, a Wasm target, and 15,000 lines of Rust he doesn't fully understand. Now comes the hard part: taking it back.
His laptop died a few weeks into building a new programming language. So he kept going... from his phone.
Nithin Bekal on what it's like to give an LLM complete control over how your language evolves, and why it was "scary."
Nithin Bekal on what it's like to give an LLM complete control over how your language evolves, and why it was "scary."
August 4, 2026 at 9:30 PM
His laptop died a few weeks into building a new programming language. So he kept going... from his phone.
Nithin Bekal on what it's like to give an LLM complete control over how your language evolves, and why it was "scary."
Nithin Bekal on what it's like to give an LLM complete control over how your language evolves, and why it was "scary."
Elixir would have made the event sourcing part easier. Ismael Celis picked Ruby anyway, specifically so it would be harder.
The constraint was the point.
The constraint was the point.
July 29, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Elixir would have made the event sourcing part easier. Ismael Celis picked Ruby anyway, specifically so it would be harder.
The constraint was the point.
The constraint was the point.
Optimistic locking is a proxy for the real question.
Ismael Celis on Dynamic Consistency Boundaries and what it actually means for a decision to still be valid by the time you commit it.
Ismael Celis on Dynamic Consistency Boundaries and what it actually means for a decision to still be valid by the time you commit it.
July 24, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Optimistic locking is a proxy for the real question.
Ismael Celis on Dynamic Consistency Boundaries and what it actually means for a decision to still be valid by the time you commit it.
Ismael Celis on Dynamic Consistency Boundaries and what it actually means for a decision to still be valid by the time you commit it.
Every time you update the cart, you throw away what the cart used to be. Ismael Celis makes the case that the temporal model isn't an alternative to the relational one.
It's a superset of it.
It's a superset of it.
July 24, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Every time you update the cart, you throw away what the cart used to be. Ismael Celis makes the case that the temporal model isn't an alternative to the relational one.
It's a superset of it.
It's a superset of it.
"How was your day?"
You don't answer with a schema. You answer with a sequence of events.
Ismael Celis on why we model software in a mode we don't actually think in.
You don't answer with a schema. You answer with a sequence of events.
Ismael Celis on why we model software in a mode we don't actually think in.
July 22, 2026 at 3:15 PM
"How was your day?"
You don't answer with a schema. You answer with a sequence of events.
Ismael Celis on why we model software in a mode we don't actually think in.
You don't answer with a schema. You answer with a sequence of events.
Ismael Celis on why we model software in a mode we don't actually think in.
Event sourcing gets a reputation for being heavy. Ismael Celis says the core of it fits in a Ruby file and an array. Everything else (the eventual consistency, the runtime, the workflows) is an optional rabbit hole.
July 21, 2026 at 3:30 PM
Event sourcing gets a reputation for being heavy. Ismael Celis says the core of it fits in a Ruby file and an array. Everything else (the eventual consistency, the runtime, the workflows) is an optional rabbit hole.
Hanami 3.0 is just the beginning.
Tim Riley shares what’s next for the framework, from a richer extension API to a developer experience people will actually want to show off.
Tim Riley shares what’s next for the framework, from a richer extension API to a developer experience people will actually want to show off.
July 17, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Hanami 3.0 is just the beginning.
Tim Riley shares what’s next for the framework, from a richer extension API to a developer experience people will actually want to show off.
Tim Riley shares what’s next for the framework, from a richer extension API to a developer experience people will actually want to show off.
Ruby is a mature language, but the ecosystem is full of innovation.
In this clip, Tim Riley makes the case for new ideas, different architectural approaches, and keeping the ecosystem open to experimentation.
In this clip, Tim Riley makes the case for new ideas, different architectural approaches, and keeping the ecosystem open to experimentation.
July 15, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Ruby is a mature language, but the ecosystem is full of innovation.
In this clip, Tim Riley makes the case for new ideas, different architectural approaches, and keeping the ecosystem open to experimentation.
In this clip, Tim Riley makes the case for new ideas, different architectural approaches, and keeping the ecosystem open to experimentation.
What happens when companies sponsor open source? Sometimes it gives maintainers the freedom to build the things everyone benefits from.
Tim Riley talks about how sponsorship made Hanakai, Hanami 3.0, and a year of steady progress possible.
Tim Riley talks about how sponsorship made Hanakai, Hanami 3.0, and a year of steady progress possible.
July 10, 2026 at 3:15 PM
What happens when companies sponsor open source? Sometimes it gives maintainers the freedom to build the things everyone benefits from.
Tim Riley talks about how sponsorship made Hanakai, Hanami 3.0, and a year of steady progress possible.
Tim Riley talks about how sponsorship made Hanakai, Hanami 3.0, and a year of steady progress possible.