Rails with Jason

In this episode I talk with Sean Schertell about his return to Rails after many years in JavaScript, the pain of node module hell, Kamal for deployment, and Sean's new startup ZiaMap for land surveyors.Links:CodepilotZiaMapNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Christian Jenko for round two. We explore abstraction as the most important idea in software, Michael Singer's philosophy on consciousness and thoughts, whether AI can become conscious, and how our mental abstractions shape what we see in reality.Links:Designing Object-Oriented Software by Rebecca Wirfs-BrockThe Surrender Experiment by Michael A. SingerThe Untethered Soul by Michael A. SingerLiving Untethered by Michael A. SingerI Am a Strange Loop by Douglas HofstadterA Thousand Brains by Jeff HawkinsIncognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David EaglemanThe Emperor's New Mind by Roger PenroseConjectures and Refutations by Karl PopperBeing There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again by Andy ClarkOn Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes by Alexandra Horowitz

In this episode I talk with Christian Genko, founder of Fileinbox. We discuss bootstrapping SaaS products, finding business ideas through openness rather than forcing, how LLMs have changed development workflows, TDD with Claude Code, and the enduring value of taste and abstractions in software.Links:FileinboxChristian Genco's personal websiteChristian Genco on XNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Miles Woodroffe, CTO of Mindful Chef. We discuss his music career touring with The Specials and working with Bob Dylan and Ray Charles, how he transitioned into tech, building great teams, and finding people who enjoy working together.Links:mileswoodroffe.comMindful ChefNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Becky Freeman, staff engineer at Caribou and co-organizer of Rocky Mountain Ruby, about legacy code, refactoring long-running applications, and the psychological skills required to get team buy-in for technical improvements.Links:Bekki Freeman on LinkedInRocky Mountain RubyCaribouNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Paul Hammond about TDD as a discoverable principle—something alien programmers would independently arrive at. We discuss my "specify, encode, fulfill" formulation, why programming needs theory instead of rules of thumb, and the business payoff of technical quality: Paul returned to a well-built project after 18 months and delivered months of planned work before Christmas.Links:ScenaristNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Eleni Konior about her path from economics to graphic design to programming, and how creative skills benefit technical work. We discuss building customer-focused features, the importance of assuming the customer's role, and AI in products beyond chatbots—like proactively surfacing recommendations based on user behavior.Links:datgreekchick.comNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Ernesto Tagwerker about using AI for Rails upgrades, AI as an unblocking tool rather than just a speeder-upper, and the dangers of AI-generated "speculative code" that adds liability without value.Links:FastRuby.ioOmbuLabs

In this episode I talk with Steven Diamante about coaching teams on XP practices and AI coding agents. We discuss why change is so hard (people have to want it), his success turning an underperforming team around through weekly learning hours, and how to use TDD with AI—including "predictive TDD" where you have the agent guess if tests will pass or fail.Links:Diamante Technical CoachingSteven Diamante on LinkedInNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Andrea Laforgia about programming principles, why good code is code that's easy to change, and his motto: "write your code so it can be easily deleted." We discuss technical debt as an operating model, the fallacy of sacrificing quality for speed, and AI's impact on learning fundamentals.Links:Andrea Laforgia on LinkedInNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Wale Olaleye about finding consulting clients through referrals and word of mouth. We discuss the "hunting vs farming" analogy for marketing, simplifying your pitch, filtering clients with deposits, and how genuine community relationships lead to business over time.Links:railsfever.comWale Olaleye on LinkedInNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Dave Thomas about why code reuse is overrated, the economics of programming principles, and why we can't empirically test whether practices work—we have to scrutinize the arguments behind them. Dave also discusses his new book Simplicity and his "developer without portfolio" concept.Links:SimplicityNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Cory Zue about his solopreneur journey building SaaS Pegasus, a Django boilerplate product. We discuss AI's potential impact on the business of selling code, the financial anxiety that persists even when things are going well, and content marketing strategies for technical products.Links:coryzue.comSaaS PegasusNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Kendall Miller about MCP (Model Context Protocol) and why AI agents need third-party guardrails. His company Maybe Don't sits between AI agents and MCP servers to prevent disasters—because AI sometimes solves problems in creative and terrifying ways.Links:Maybe Don't, AIKendall Miller on LinkedInNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Joel Drapper about defect-free development—not just automated testing, but the full spectrum: linting, static typing, database constraints, and especially runtime assertions. Joel's library Literal lets you define type expectations that blow up immediately when violated, catching bugs before they spread.Links:literal.funphlex.funjoel.drapper.meNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Chris Gaffney about Dead Man's Snitch, a cron job monitoring service he's run full-time for six years after Collective Idea acquired it at a very early stage. We discuss the five-year path to profitability, SaaS being harder today, and dopaminergic personalities in tech.Links:Dead Man's SnitchNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Lio Lunesu, CTO of Defang, about infrastructure as code, Docker, and Docker Compose. Defang compiles Docker Compose files into cloud infrastructure code.Links:DefangLio Lunesu on LinkedInSaturnCINonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Ryan Frisch and Brendan Buckingham from the Rails Business Podcast about whether info products are viable in the Rails community, how business ideas emerge from personal pain points rather than brainstorming, and I give an update on SaturnCI sales.Links:Rails Business PodcastLocableSaturnCINonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Jeff Casimir, founder of Turing School, about why AI is far down his list of reasons for the tech job market downturn—he points instead to macroeconomic policy, copycat layoff culture, and companies using layoffs to suppress worker organizing. We also discuss aptitude vs. belief, why school is mostly daycare, and his prompt injection resume experiment.Links:Jeff Casimir on LinkedInNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk, about her PhD research on Darwin's methods, speculation in science, and how 19th century evolutionary thinking influenced literature. We discuss epistemology, conjecture and criticism, and how these ideas connect to programming.Links:RedMonkSpeculation and the Darwinian Method in British Romance Fiction, 1859-1914Nonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Michael Ferranti from Unleash about feature flags, trunk-based development, and why DevOps metrics alone aren't sufficient. We discuss FeatureOps—focusing on customer outcomes rather than just code delivery—plus the "three voices" (engineering, business, customer) and AI's role in accelerating feedback loops.Links:UnleashNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Josef Strzibny about his books Deployment from Scratch and Kamal Handbook, the economics of info products in the Ruby space, his new project Lake AI, and his road trip through the Balkans. We also compare driving cultures across Europe and the US.Links:Kamal HandbookDeployment from ScratchNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Tom Akehurst, CTO and Co-founder at WireMock, about API mocking, testing philosophy (verification vs specification, contracts, the testing pyramid), inner vs outer loop development, and MCP (Model Context Protocol) for integrating AI coding tools with external services.Links:WireMockWireMock on YouTubeTom Akehurst on LinkedInNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Jarrett Yew about his 10-year programming journey, early freelancing failures, working with difficult clients, and we go deep on AGI, neuroscience, spatial reasoning in language, and David Deutsch's theories on perception.Links:Jarrett Yew on LinkedInjarrettyew.comNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Raphael Masson, CTO of Missive, and Craig Kerstiens from Crunchy Data. We cover bootstrapping Missive from a side project (Conference Badge), growing from 3 to 15 employees, migrating off Heroku, and why most developers underutilize Postgres.Links:MissiveCrunchy DataNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Mike Bowers, Chief Architect at Faircom, about ISAM—the bare-metal database layer that predates SQL and powers stock trading systems. We cover Faircom's pivot into industrial IoT, their JSON/SQL hybrid approach, and discuss AI, consciousness, and the symbol grounding problem.Links:FairComNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Mike Mroczka about his book Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview. We discuss why algorithmic interviews persist, how AI has disrupted hiring, and why personal branding matters more than ever. Mike shares strategies for bypassing flooded job applications by contacting hiring managers directly.mikemroczka.comBeyond Cracking the Coding Interview on AmazonCracking the Coding Interview by Gayle McDowell

In this episode I talk with Austin Chadwick and Chris Lucian about AI and machine learning. We discuss why LLMs may not lead to AGI, the history of AI funding, the philosophy of induction versus explanation, and my robot project idea for building intelligence from sensory experience up.Links:Mob Mentality ShowNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Gregory Kapfhammer about flaky tests. We cover their five main causes, why fixing individual flaky tests isn't enough, and how test suite health connects to broader engineering practices, team culture, and the overall quality mindset of an organization.Links:https://www.gregorykapfhammer.com/The Beginning of InfinityGödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas HofstadterZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert PirsigNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Todd Kaufman about founding Test Double, focusing on hiring senior consultants who excel at communication and empathy. We discuss how consulting is 90% psychology, the importance of seeking to understand before being understood, and why most software projects still fail due to organizational rather than technical issues.Links:Test Doubletodd@testdouble.comNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Irina Nazarova about the San Francisco Ruby Conference happening November 19-21. She explains why SF needs a Ruby conference, the focus on connecting Ruby startup founders with engineers, showcasing new companies building with Rails, and fostering a pragmatic community centered on growth and innovation.Links:San Francisco Ruby ConferenceSF Ruby Cloud CardsEvil MartiansNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Matthew Ford about AI-assisted coding at BitZesty. We discuss how AI speeds up development while requiring human oversight, the risks of "vibe coding," why automated testing remains critical, and how AI changes but doesn't replace fundamental software development practices like version control and architecture decisions.Links:Bit ZestyMatthew Ford on TwitterMatthew Ford on BlueskyNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Steve Ruiz about creating TLDraw, an open-source canvas SDK. We discuss the intersection of design and engineering, managing complexity through abstractions, state machines, and how multiple rewrites helped him discover the core problems. Steve shares insights on building developer tools and solving difficult UI challenges.Links:tldrawSteve Ruiz's personal websiteNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Anthony Eden about building DNSimple, a DNS provider and domain registrar. We discuss his 25 years in the domain industry, technical challenges, and why specialized niches create natural competitive moats.DNSimpleAnthony Eden on LinkedInanthony@dnsimple.comNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Radan Skorić about his book Master Hotwire, the challenges of Hotwire documentation, blogging in the AI age, how AI affects content creation, the Chinese room thought experiment, consciousness and computation, trust versus critical thinking, and why quality content that goes deeper than AI can produce still matters.Master Hotwireradanskoric.comRadan's Rails World talkJason's stuff:Nonsense MonthlySaturnCI

In this episode, I discuss AI with Daniel Nastase, covering Daniel's journey from building neural networks from scratch to understanding embeddings and vector databases. We explore the limitations of current AI learning models versus explanation-based reasoning, and discuss practical AI applications including agents and voice interfaces for programming.JS CraftDaniel's LangGraph bookDaniel's LangChain bookSaturnCINonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Cody Norman about his journey from economics to programming, his tattoo shop management software SpotSquid, and lessons from building products for non-technical users. We discuss market challenges, customer development strategies, and Cody's path to conference speaking.CodyNorman.comSpot SquidNonsense MonthlySaturnCI

In this episode I talk with Joel Drapper about open source development, the joy of coding without constraints, AI tools like GitHub Copilot, and our shared discomfort with the phrase "duplication is better than the wrong abstraction." We explore abstraction, technical debt versus "technical poison," and our mutual search for high-quality work environments.Joel Drapper on LinkedInPhlexNonsense MonthlySaturnCI

In this episode I talk with Jim Remzick about how AI has affected the job market, the value of in-person networking, and XO Ruby, Jim's series of regional Ruby conferences happening across the US.XO RubyFlagrantNonsense Monthly

In this episode, I talk with Joe Masilotti about his new book on Hotwire Native, which lets Rails developers build mobile apps using web views with native functionality. We explore the writing process, consulting approaches, client engagement strategies, and how both of us find clients through speaking and writing.Hotwire Native for Rails Developers book (use discount code CodeWithJasonHotwire for 35% off)Joe Masilotti's websiteNonsense Monthly

In this episode, I chat with Paul Hammond about effective testing strategies, the joy of working with well-designed TDD systems, and how synchronous collaboration improves code quality. We examine what true agility means and how technical excellence enables fearless releases and sustainable development.Feedback-Driven DevelopmentPaul Hammond on LinkedInNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Dan Moore from FusionAuth about authentication solutions, testing strategies, and when to skip tests based on risk and cost factors, then dive into philosophical discussions about experience versus knowledge, objective versus subjective programming practices, and imperative versus declarative coding approaches.FusionAuthDownload FusionAuthFusionAuth articlesUse managed services

In this episode I talk with Gayle Laakmann McDowell, author of Cracking the Coding Interview. We discuss coding interviews as well as the current state of the job market and economy.Cracking the Coding Interviewgayle.comNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Michael Lubas, founder of Paraxial, a software security product for Ruby on Rails applications. We discuss his background in both development and penetration testing, and his recent creation of GemShop - a deliberately vulnerable Rails 8 e-commerce application designed to teach developers about web security through hands-on experience. Michael explains common attack vectors like credential stuffing, the legal complexities around security research, and why developers are actually very interested in security despite stereotypes. We also cover his experience at Rails World and how Paraxial helps Rails developers get started with security.Paraxial.ioMichael Lubas on LinkedInmichael@paraxial.ioNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Adam McCrea, founder of Judoscale, an autoscaler for Heroku and other platforms. Adam built Judoscale as a side project in 2016 and ran it part-time for five years before going full-time. We discuss developer marketing challenges, the difficulty of measuring marketing attribution, and building sustainable businesses. We also compare notes on our respective developer tools.

In this episode I discuss abstraction and emergence with Jorge Manrubia from 37signals. We explore how abstractions should hide distracting details while showing essential information, debate whether programming guidelines are subjective or objective, and examine how good explanations distinguish useful abstractions from poor ones. The conversation touches on service objects, domain modeling, and the importance of showing actual code when discussing software design principles.

In this episode I talk with Chris Chilek and John Cunningham of LegiPlex about their AI-enhanced legislative monitoring platform. We discuss how they identified the market opportunity, the technical challenges of processing government data, and their approach to building beyond simple AI prompts.LegiPlex

In this episode, I talk with Errol Schmidt from Reinteractive about community involvement and sales strategies. Errol shares how he targets Salesforce by teaching their account executives about Heroku, positioning himself as the go-to expert. We discuss how developers are in sales whether they realize it or not, and the importance of relationship building.reinteractive

In this episode, Colleen Schnettler discusses her startup HelloQuery, which allows non-technical people to query databases using natural language. She explains her marketing approach for growing the business, including her LinkedIn outreach system and focus on finding the right niche in the crowded AI space. Colleen also shares insights about her new venture, SaaS Marketing Gym, which helps technical founders develop and implement marketing plans.

In this episode I talk with Dave Farley about how good software engineering prioritizes making code easy to change, since we inevitably need to revise our systems as requirements evolve. Dave also shares stories from building ultra-fast financial trading systems, where his team had to repeatedly rethink their architecture to meet performance demands. We also discuss how key concepts like abstraction and modularity connect to scientific thinking, with both requiring a healthy skepticism toward our own assumptions.Modern Software EngineeringThe Software Developers' GuidebookNonsense Monthly

In this episode I talk with Yegor Denisov-Blanch and Simon Obstbaum about their Stanford research on developer productivity. They share findings about "ghost engineers" (9.5% of developers who do minimal work), discuss challenges in measuring engineering output versus productivity, and explain their data-driven approach to software engineering assessment. The conversation explores how different developers contribute varying value, how life circumstances impact work motivation, and their methodology examining source code and Git metadata. The researchers highlight the importance of quantifying engineering contributions and have collected data from over 50,000 engineers in their ongoing study.