Kent Beck 🌻

Pioneered JUnit/xUnit, patterns, XP, TDD. Ex-Apple, Meta, Gusto, Mechanical Orchard. Learning to be me. Blogging at

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

I am continuing work on "Tidy First? An Exercise In Empirical Software Design" as a @substack . No paid tier yet, but that's where book chapters will be appearing. Sign up here: https://t.co/yWuIaA0qwh.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@conways_law So the tactics of resistance are overloading that compute with fake signals?

[Anton Zaides @AntonZaides]

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:
https://t.co/Y3jhnO8od7

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

Genies are being designed as a RoboGym for the mind.
Button labelled "Lift." Weight goes up. Down. A counter tells you how many joules you burned.

That's not a workout.

I love that my genie does my toil — reformatting, boilerplate, drudgery. It teaches me nothing.

The struggle is different. Three hours on a train proving a theorem I knew was true changed who I was.

Let the genie carry the toil. Leave me my struggle. I need it. More in my newsletter.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@TaliaRinger OOPSLA used to have a wide variety of badges, including a unique one saying, "I'm Special," given to one attendee who was, well, special by their own insistence.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

https://t.co/UneXUiVr5K

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

It's been interesting watching mathematicians saying, "We prove theorems. The genie proves theorems better. Who are we now?" Programmers wen't through the same thing 2 years ago--we code, the genie codes better (for some definition of better), who are we now?

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@satnam6502 Looking forward to your reactions to my keynote.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@jimmykoppel I approve this message

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@josh_wills Microwills of snark?

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@xatzistnr Try it both ways and see which one works best in practice.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@josh_wills "PFP of Dorian Gray"

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@samaaron That is looking so smooth! Sounds good too.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@AGrillz I have a Tumi Tegra Lite that seemed like an indulgence when I bought it but nope. It's worth it.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@GergelyOrosz Do things 3-4 times.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

@satnam6502 How about the Motorola 88000? 💋

[Keith Adams // Pebblebed @keithmadams]

"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?
https://t.co/vUWH6B3O4u

[JosH200 @josh_wills]

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.

https://t.co/foFmjdfSYG

[The Pragmatic Engineer @Pragmatic_Eng]

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 🌻 @KentBeck]

@chrissyfarr And back to the Antarctica treaties in the hottest part of the Cold War.

[Kent Beck 🌻 @KentBeck]

So glad to be part of this. Building trust while we build code is the inner loop of our future.

[Alex Xu @alexxubyte]

🚀 Announcing ByteByteGo Live: learn AI live from real builders.

I’ve spent the past 8 years on education: thousands of hours writing books, deep dive newsletters, YouTube, etc.

Two issues I keep seeing are: 1) it’s very different to learn from real builders. 2) most online courses never get finished (~4% completion).

Over the past 12 months, we’ve been working on what we can do to change that.

Today, I’m excited to announce ByteByteGo Live: live cohort courses taught by real builders.
- Taught by real builders. Our instructors include very senior engineers from Google, Meta, etc., as well as @KentBeck , the creator of TDD. They teach what they use in their own work.
- Live cohorts. Every course runs live with a group of people, and instructors answer your questions in real time.

The current lineup:
- AI Engineering Fundamentals
- Build with Claude Code
- Build Production Grade AI Systems
- Rebuild YouTube with AI
- AI Evals in Practice
- AI Cost Optimization
- Trust-optimized AI Development

We have big plans for the year ahead: more courses, more instructors, and deeper hands on projects.

Check out https://t.co/8veGTRgo22 and let us know what you think.