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Martin Fowler

npub1mtqgzyvcu4ghnasmedauzzr33grk8px8fn0npckd3yr9fh9tsxpqtdld43@drss.io

Master feed of news and updates from martinfowler.com

Fragments: August 18

18 Aug 2026

Part of the reason why I’m at Thoughtworks is because I’d like to see a software development organization founded on technical excellence as an example for the rest of the industry. The trouble

TDD inside the agent loop - theater or actual value?

11 Aug 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/donkey-card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/tdd-in-the-agent-loop.html) My colleagues at Thoughtworks tend to be big

Fragments: August 4

4 Aug 2026

There’s been a fair bit of publicity of the [Open AI “rogue agent” that hacked into Hugging

The Conductor Developer

31 Jul 2026

**TL;DR** *Why I think software development is starting to feel a little more like conducting an orchestra.* ![](https://martinfowler.com/rachels-ramblings/card.png) There’s a shift happening

The Economic Benefit of Refactoring

30 Jul 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/donkey-card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/refactoring-economic-benefit.html) **Giles Edwards-Alexander** does an

The Orchestrator's Tax

28 Jul 2026

Subagents get justified by time saved and parallel execution, but **Rahul Garg** explains that's not what matters most. Every token in the orchestrator's context is competing for its attention, and

Why I’m Writing Rachel’s Ramblings

28 Jul 2026

**TL;DR** *I have ideas. I haven’t been writing them. That’s about to change. I promise… myself.* ![](https://martinfowler.com/rachels-ramblings/card.png) I’ve been thinking a lot about

Fragments: July 21

21 Jul 2026

With this post, I’ll wrap up my notes from the second [Future of Software Development Retreat](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FutureOfSoftwareDevelopment.html). But before I do, I should note that

The Archaeologist’s Copilot

16 Jul 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/archaeologist-copilot/card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/archaeologist-copilot.html) When people think of legacy modernization, most folks aren't

DSLs Enable Reliable Use of LLMs

14 Jul 2026

LLMs generate code incredibly fast, but to ensure they generate exactly what is intended, they need clear boundaries. Abstractions and Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) provide a strong harness that

Fragments: July 13

13 Jul 2026

Some more of my notes from [Thoughtworks Future of Software Development Retreat](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FutureOfSoftwareDevelopment.html). When we had our first retreat in Utah early this

Experiences with local models for coding

8 Jul 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/donkey-card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/local-models-for-coding-experiences.html) **Birgitta Böckeler** now

Viability of local models for coding

7 Jul 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/donkey-card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/local-models-for-coding-factors.html) **Birgitta Böckeler** recently

Fragments: July 6

6 Jul 2026

Last week, Thoughtworks ran a second [Future of Software Development Retreat](https://martinfowler.com/bliki/FutureOfSoftwareDevelopment.html), this time in Europe. As with the previous event, I’ll

Fragments: June 16

16 Jun 2026

“Prag Dave” Thomas (co-author of the outstanding “Pragmatic Programmer”) [has loved programming](https://articles.pragdave.me/p/castles-in-the-air?triedRedirect=true) since he was young. >

Building Reliable Agentic AI Systems

16 Jun 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/reliable-llm-bayer/card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/reliable-llm-bayer.html) One of the most interesting projects my colleagues have done with LLMs

Fragments: June 2

2 Jun 2026

Greg Wilson has noticed that lots of folks are [using dodgy metrics](https://third-bit.com/2026/05/20/twelve-ways-to-be-wrong/) to figure out if AI tools are worth their costs. > Would you measure

Fragments: May 27

27 May 2026

At the GOTO Conference in Copenhagen in 2025, [Kent Beck and I spent some time on stage](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii_rLjQfjp0&list=PLEx5khR4g7PINwOsYrkwz3lTTJUYoXC53) talking and answering

The test suite as a regression sensor

27 May 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents/card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents.html#TheTestSuiteAsARegressionSensor) **Birgitta Böckeler**

The VibeSec Reckoning

27 May 2026

Vibe coding has significantly accelerated software prototyping but AI agents frequently recommend insecure configurations, creating security problems. **Gautam Koul, Lucian Moss, Neil Drew-Lopez, and

Bliki: Vibe Coding

21 May 2026

Vibe coding is building a software application by prompting an LLM, telling it what to build, trying it out, prompting for changes - but without looking at any of the code that the LLM generates.

Three more static code analysis sensors

20 May 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents/card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents.html#StaticCodeAnalysisDependencyRules) **Birgitta Böckeler**

Maintainability sensors for coding agents

19 May 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents/card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/sensors-for-coding-agents.html) In her recent article about harness engineering for

Fragments: May 14

14 May 2026

Last week I spent a day at The Orchard Retreat, hosted by [Mechanical Orchard](https://www.mechanical-orchard.com/). that brought together several people working in software development to talk about

Bliki: Interrogatory LLM

14 May 2026

When we need an LLM to perform a complex task, we often need to feed it a lot of context. Coming up with a design for a new feature requires descriptions of how we want the feature to appear to the

What is Code

12 May 2026

Increasingly humans delegate writing code to agents. Will there even be source code in the future? To wrestle with this question, we have to understand what code is. **Unmesh Joshi** sees code as

Fragments: May 5

5 May 2026

Over the last couple of months Rahul Garg published a series of posts here on how to [reduce the friction in AI-assisted programming](https://martinfowler.com/articles/reduce-friction-ai/). To make

Bliki: Mythical Man Month

5 May 2026

In the early 1960s, Fred Brooks managed the development of IBM's System/360 computer systems. After it was done he penned his thoughts in the book [The Mythical

Fragments: April 29

29 Apr 2026

Chris Parsons has updated [his guide on using AI to code](https://www.chrismdp.com/coding-with-ai/). This is his third update, what I like about it is that he gives a lot of concrete information

Structured-Prompt-Driven Development (SPDD)

28 Apr 2026

[![](https://martinfowler.com/articles/structured-prompt-driven//card.png)](https://martinfowler.com/articles/structured-prompt-driven/) LLM programming assistants have demonstrated considerable

Alan Turing play in Cambridge MA

11 Apr 2026

Last night I saw Central Square Theater’s excellent production of [Breaking the Code](https://www.centralsquaretheater.org/shows/breaking-the-code-2026/). It’s about Alan Turing, who made a

Feedback Flywheel

8 Apr 2026

**Rahul Garg** finishes his series on reducing the friction in AI-Assisted Development. He proposes a [structured feedback