The Changelog: Software Development, Open Source Changelog Media

Tim Fisken explains the problem with soft deletion, a simple measure of software dependency freshness is proposed, a deep-dive on sound design in software, a web app with over 80 handy developer tools built in & Luke Plant reminds us that programming mantras are proverbs, not laws.

Annie Sexton has been on quite a journey since she was last on the show back in early ‘22. On this episode, Annie takes us on that journey, shares her new-found perspective & tells us about how she’s approaching her side project this time around.

Paul Orlando is back to talk about his book titled “Why Now?” You may remember Paul from his last appearance (a fan favorite) talking with Jerod about complex systems & second-order effects. Paul’s book, “Why Now?” explores the concept of timing and the importance of understanding the ‘why now’ in business and product development. We discuss timing examples from the book that were either too early or too late (such as the first video phone and car phones), the need to consider both technological advancements and user demand when assessing timing, the significance of timing in the success of companies like Apple and the launch of the iPhone, Uber and Heroku, and more. Also, join our Slack community for a chance to get a signed copy of Paul’s book.

Bahaa Zidan says your web framework doesn’t matter, DHH writes about magic machines, Dylan Huang reviews thousands of opinions on HTMX, Tim Ottinger says programming is thinking & Tim Spann says small language models (SLM) for the win.

Our friend Ron Evans is a technologist for hire, an open source developer, an author, a speaker, an iconoclast, and one of our favorite people in tech. This conversation with Ron goes everywhere: from high-altitude weather balloons, to life on Mars, to Zeno’s paradox applied to ML, to what open source devs should learn from the Wu-Tang Clan & more.

This week we’re joined by Dustin Bluck to discuss his acquisition of the well known (and beloved) Castro podcast app to take it indie-focused once again. As previous users of Castro, we were excited to dig into the details behind this popular podcast client to see what’s next, how the deal was done, a peek into the code, and where exactly this indie and creator focused podcast app can go.