Martin Fowler

5 Oct 2026

In response to my [last fragments](https://martinfowler.com/fragments/2026-09-29.html) (probably the bit about us worrying if LLMs have consciousness when we when we should be wondering why they

30 Sep 2026

[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/never-send-slides/slide-principles.html) Not every presentation needs slides, but when

29 Sep 2026

A Sensible Default is a practice that, absent some overriding context, should be used when carrying out a certain kind of task. In software development such sensible defaults might include things

29 Sep 2026

[Simon Willison:](https://simonwillison.net/2026/Sep/24/harder/) > The more time I spend working with coding agents, the more convinced I am that they make software engineering even harder > > We

24 Sep 2026

Rob Bowley is “flipping tables in his head” with [anger at the current media coverage of the danger of AI killing us

24 Sep 2026

[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/healthy-peer-feedback.html) Human collaboration, like most things, improves with feedback.

17 Sep 2026

I have a lot of mixed feelings about AI and LLM technology. I’m fascinated by its effect on our profession, excited by the potential gains in productivity - and thus the products we could rapidly

16 Sep 2026

Reports of agentic hacking continue, in this case it happened back in May and it seems OpenAI did not disclose that they were responsible. [Simon Willison sees two

15 Sep 2026

[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/never-send-slides/nail-your-narrative.html) **Sumeet Gayathri Moghe** finds many folks

9 Sep 2026

[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/2026-social-traffic.html) A quick survey of recent engagement of my posts on social media,

8 Sep 2026

Christian Catalini says we’re in a situation where we are [vastly reducing the cost of generating things, but not the cost of verifying them:](https://catalini.com/ideas/economics-of-ai/). > This

8 Sep 2026

[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/never-send-slides/need-presentation.html) Like me, **Sumeet Gayathri Moghe** is tired of

2 Sep 2026

**The difference between a medicine and a poison is dosage.** Often we talk about certain habits, in programming or life, are good or bad. But few things are simple binaries. Some vary with context:

2 Sep 2026

[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/exploring-gen-ai/an-accidental-blackboard.html) **Giles Edwards-Alexander** reports that

2 Sep 2026

**TL;DR** *Or, perhaps the problem isn't that AI has broken code review, maybe it’s that we've been using code review to solve the wrong problems*

1 Sep 2026

Like many readers, I’m wary of AI generated prose. Simon Wilison has written an [LLM cliché

27 Aug 2026

[](https://martinfowler.com/articles/making-data-ready-for-agentic-ai.html) Lots of organizations are excited about

24 Aug 2026

I was listening to [Ezra Klein’s interview with Helen Toner](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-helen-toner.html) about the recent OpenAI hack of Hugging Face and the

19 Aug 2026

**TL;DR** *Why building an app over the weekend isn't the same as building enterprise software*  I’ve noticed an interesting gap opening

19 Aug 2026

**Jim Highsmith** recognizes that effective writing from a practitioner is a style distinct from academic writing or thought-leadership content. It's a style that I advocate, and my contributors

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

11 Aug 2026

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

4 Aug 2026

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

31 Jul 2026

**TL;DR** *Why I think software development is starting to feel a little more like conducting an orchestra.*  There’s a shift happening

30 Jul 2026

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

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

28 Jul 2026

**TL;DR** *I have ideas. I haven’t been writing them. That’s about to change. I promise… myself.*  I’ve been thinking a lot about

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

16 Jul 2026

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

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

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

8 Jul 2026

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

7 Jul 2026

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

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

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. >

16 Jun 2026

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

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

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

27 May 2026

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

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

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.

20 May 2026

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

19 May 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

28 Apr 2026

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