Dead Code

Jared Norman

The software industry has a short memory. It warps good ideas, quickly obfuscating their context and intent. Dead Code seeks to extract the good ideas from the chaos of modern software development. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. 4 DAYS AGO

    Fear-Driven Everything (with Justin Searls)

    On this episode of Dead Code, Jared talks with Justin Searls, co-founder of Test Double, about programming workflows, decision-making, and the evolving role of developers. They explore how the order and tempo of thought matter more than static code, why tackling the riskiest problems first can shape better outcomes, and how Justin’s idea of the “full-breadth developer” expands a programmer’s role to include product vision and context. The conversation touches on Agile and XP roots, consulting realities, and how AI coding agents can both accelerate and complicate work. The episode wraps with Justin encouraging blogging and direct connection, while Jared reflects on building a “grand unified theory” of how programmers decide their next step. Links: Sign up at jardo.dev/anarchyagile to enter the 50th episode giveaway! Test Double Justin Searls: Find his writing, projects, and podcast Breaking Change at justin.searls.co Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests by Steve Freeman & Nat Pryce Extreme Programming Explained by Kent Beck The Secrets of Consulting by Jerry Weinberg Clojure REPL Solidus SwiftData CloudKit Cursor Claude Code Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 1m

  2. 26 AUG

    Rage Quit Stamina Theory

    The 50th episode of the Dead Code Podcast brought Karl Weber, Jared Norman, Benjamin Wil, Sofia Besenski, and Noah Silveira together to mark the milestone with sharp, funny, and critical takes on the state of tech. They skewered CEOs bragging about AI-driven layoffs as short-sighted profiteering, questioned the hype fueling the AI bubble, and praised Ruby and Rails for extending developers’ “rage quit stamina” despite flaws in error reporting and dependency management. The group emphasized the importance of empathetic, fast code reviews and smaller PRs, arguing that culture and collaboration matter more than mythical “10x developers.” They also critiqued DHH’s claim that executives should be the least busy, framing it as privilege disguised as wisdom, while pointing out that rest and balance benefit everyone. The episode captured their signature mix of humor, industry critique, and camaraderie, closing with gratitude for 50 episodes and excitement for what’s next. Links: Giveaway: Anarchy Agile hats — enter at jardo.dev/anarchyagile “CEOs Are Publicly Boasting About Reducing Their Workforces With AI” – Futurism The Pragmatic Engineer 2025 Survey: What’s in your tech stack? Part 1 “Two Simple Rules to Fix Code Reviews” – The Pragmatic Engineer “In Praise of Normal Engineers” – Charity Majors, Honeycomb “Executives Should Be the Least Busy People” – David Heinemeier Hansson Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    48 min

  3. 12 AUG

    Radiation Hardened (with Dave Gauer)

    In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews Dave Gauer, creator of the Ziglings project—a whimsical, hands-on tutorial for learning the Zig programming language. Dave shares how Ziglings began as a personal learning tool and grew into a widely loved resource, especially among younger developers. He emphasizes the value of learning in public, blending humor, accessibility, and bite-sized challenges to make complex systems programming concepts less intimidating. The conversation also explores Dave’s deep interest in the Forth language, the appeal of small, self-contained “microworlds” for learning, and his broader philosophy on sharing work, embracing whimsy, and building things that make programming joyful and approachable. Links: Ziglings Zig Rustlings Forth ColorForth Alpine Linux Lynx browser Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby Learning Perl The Little Schemer Mindstorms by Seymour Papert Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon Ratfactor.com – Dave Gauer’s personal website and blog. Forth in Space (section on Ratfactor) – Dave’s notes on how Forth has been used in radiation-hardened chips and space tech. Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 3m

  4. 29 JUL

    Epistemic Extinction (with Mond)

    In this episode of Dead Code, Jared and guest Mond explore how James C. Scott’s concepts of legibility, metis, and episteme apply to tech interviews, arguing that standardized hiring processes prioritize what’s easy to measure over what truly reflects engineering skill. They critique the over-reliance on algorithmic interviews, noting that senior engineering work often depends on tacit knowledge—metis—that can’t be captured in rubrics or LeetCode problems. The conversation touches on Goodhart’s Law, the risks of over-optimization, and how attempts to make human processes more legible through metrics can backfire. Jared shares how his company experiments with more realistic code assessments, though both acknowledge the challenges of scaling less standardized approaches. They conclude by warning that technological standardization of social systems, like hiring, can entrench flawed norms and obscure what actually matters. Links: James C. Scott Seeing Like a State Legibility (as a concept) Goodhart’s Law The Cobra Effect LeetCode YAML Mond’s Blog – Here Comes the Moon Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    33 min

  5. 15 JUL

    Naked and Semantic (with Fabien Basmaison and Jens Oliver Meiert)

    In this episode of Dead Code, Jared speaks with Jens Oliver Meiert and Fabien Basmaison, co-maintainers of CSS Naked Day, a long-standing web tradition that invites developers to strip CSS from their websites for one day to emphasize semantic HTML, accessibility, and the separation of concerns in front-end development. Originally launched in 2006, the event encourages developers to reflect on the underlying structure of their sites and how well they function without styling. Meiert and Basmaison discuss how modern tools like Tailwind, CSS-in-JS, and component-based design both challenge and occasionally align with the event’s philosophy, and they explore reasons for the decline in participation, from increased reliance on frameworks to the rise of AI-assisted development. Looking ahead to the 20th anniversary in 2026, they hope to inspire more developers to join in, even in small ways, as a reminder of the enduring value of accessible, maintainable, and standards-based web design. Links: Jens' Blog CSS Naked Day CSS Zen Garden Frontend Dogma PandaDoc Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    42 min

  6. 1 JUL

    Eat Your Greens (with Ivo Anjo)

    In this episode of Dead Code, Jared interviews Ivo Anjo, a Ruby performance expert at Datadog, about Ruby’s concurrency model and his work improving visibility into it. They discuss the Global VM Lock (GVL), which simplifies Ruby’s internals but hinders multithreading, and explore the promise and current limitations of M:N scheduling, now partially implemented via Ractors in Ruby 3.4. Ivo created the gvl-tracing gem to visualize thread behavior and uncover subtle bugs, advocating for a more intelligent, OS-like scheduler to improve performance fairness. He also shares insights from building Datadog’s always-on production profiler and his direct-bind gem, which allows low-level access to Ruby internals when official APIs fall short. Overall, the episode highlights a growing movement of developers modernizing Ruby’s internals and pushing past its reputation for being slow. Links: gvl-tracing direct-bind StackProf rbspy Ractors YJIT RubyConf RubyKaigi EuRuKo 2025 Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    50 min

  7. 17 JUN

    Herbicide (with Marco Roth)

    In this episode of Dead Code, Jared talks with Marco Roth about Herb, a new fault-tolerant parser for HTML and ERB designed to improve the developer experience in the Rails ecosystem. Unlike tools like Deface or Nokogiri, Herb doesn’t auto-correct or mask errors—it parses templates exactly as written, enabling better diagnostics, formatting, and linting for server-rendered views, especially in Hotwire, Turbo, and Stimulus contexts. Built in C for portability and speed, Herb can be used across Ruby, JavaScript, and browsers via WebAssembly. Marco created it after running into limitations with existing tooling while building the Stimulus LSP. Future plans include deeper integration with tools like Ruby LSP and possibly enabling LiveView-style reactive rendering in Rails. Developers can try it today via a VS Code extension or the interactive web playground. Links: Deface Spree Solidus Nokogiri RuboCop Prism Herb Herb Playground Herb VS Code Extension Hotwire Turbo Stimulus StimulusReflex Phoenix LiveView Ruby LSP Episode 10 with Kevin Newton on Prism Episode 38 with Carson Gross on HTMX  Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    29 min

  8. 10 JUN

    Coffee Grindcore (with Alan Ridlehoover)

    In this episode of Dead Code, Jared talks with Alan Ridlehoover, Senior Engineering Manager at Cisco Meraki, about managing software complexity through clear abstractions and thoughtful design. Using a metaphor of a vending-style coffee machine, Alan explains how complexity often arises not from algorithms but from code that’s hard to understand due to excessive abstraction or poor structure. He emphasizes focusing on the readability of what’s directly in front of you, using tools like flog and the ABC metric to quantify complexity, while also trusting gut instinct and applying heuristics like Sandi Metz’s five-line rule. Alan discusses minimizing over-engineering, favoring well-named private methods over inline comments, and stresses that code and commit messages—not comments—should tell the story. He also introduces “rehydration,” the process of adding back duplication to reveal better abstractions, helping developers make their code more maintainable and easier to change over time. Links: Flog (Ruby) ABC Metric Gerrit DRY Principle (Don’t Repeat Yourself) Domain-Driven Design (DDD) Polymorphism Dead Code Podcast Links: Mastodon X Jared’s Links: Mastodon X twitch.tv/jardonamron Jared’s Newsletter & Website Episode Transcript Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    39 min
See All (53)

Trailer

About

The software industry has a short memory. It warps good ideas, quickly obfuscating their context and intent. Dead Code seeks to extract the good ideas from the chaos of modern software development. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Information

  • Creator
    Jared Norman
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    53
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Jared Norman
  • Show Website
    Dead Code

You Might Also Like